


apple koi; the story that almost (and we’re here, now we’ll hold on)

by RyeFo



Series: Apple Koi [1]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: ASH LIVES BITCH, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ash Lynx Lives, Brother-Sister Relationships, First Time, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kaori Okumura is Eiji's sister lol, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mild Smut, Okumura Kaori, Okumura Kaori is a brat, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-01-22 19:28:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 47,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21307376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyeFo/pseuds/RyeFo
Summary: “A koi fish,” her teacher once read out loud from a well-worn storybook, “means tenacity. Perseverance. It is said that they fight against waterfalls, always swimming against the stream’s current so that when they one day reach the top of those waterfalls, they can shed their scales and become dragons.”Thunder cracked in the doorway of the Okumura household, and from its light, her brother stood half-drowned in the doorway. Eiji was never the talkative type, but as he let the water drip from the floor into pools on the carpet without saying a word, thunder rumbling in the backdrop of Izumo, she knew that any words would have been choked out of him.Eiji spared one small smile at her, dropped his suitcase by the shoe cupboard, and walked through the house with squeaking wet shoes. Kaori watched, frowned, and decided not to press.He didn’t talk much about America.(Or, a year from the finale, Kaori Okumura watches her brother struggle with the grief of his time in America, and not all is at it seems surrounding Ash Lynx.)
Relationships: Ash Lynx & Okumura Eiji's Sister, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji, Okumura Eiji's Sister & Okumura Eiji
Series: Apple Koi [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541170
Comments: 188
Kudos: 637





	1. apple doesn't fall far from the tree

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the light in me will guide you home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17080994) by [ADreamingSongbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamingSongbird/pseuds/ADreamingSongbird). 
**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Recently edited in all the deleted scenes/added more to chapter 3!)

_“A koi fish_,” her teacher once read out loud from a well-worn storybook, _“means tenacity. Perseverance. It is said that they fight against waterfalls, always swimming against the stream’s current so that when they one day reach the top of those waterfalls, they can shed their scales and become dragons._” 

Thunder cracked in the doorway of the Okumura household, and from its light, her brother stood half-drowned in the doorway. Eiji was never the talkative type, but as he let the water drip from the floor into pools on the carpet without saying a word, thunder rumbling in the backdrop of Izumo, she knew that any words would have been choked out of him.

Eiji spared one small smile at her, dropped his suitcase by the shoe cupboard, and walked through the house with squeaking wet shoes. Kaori watched, frowned, and decided not to press.

He didn’t talk much about America.

Sometimes, Eiji would tell her small things. It was more than her mother got—false smiles and reassurances of his state—and for that, Kaori justified, she had to be grateful for the snippets Eiji would share with her.

Kaori would sit at the edge of his futon on the particularly stormy evenings, half-exhausted from high-school exams, he tired from his years in university, and he would select a random picture from his portfolio and lay it out for her.

“You got to hold a real _gun?_” Kaori gasps and propels herself up on her hands. “What did it feel like?”

Eiji rests his hand on his head, let out a chuckle. His hair fell past his shoulders, falling out of the messy ponytail he’d been keeping it in lately. “Surprisingly, it was lightweight.”

“Eh?” She frowns, jutting out her lip. “I always thought they would be really heavy.”

“Well, the bigger guns are.” He waves his hand dismissively. “But the smaller ones are meant to be compact. Easy to carry around even when it is not in your hands.”

_Able to be hidden. _She knows those words are on his lips. Kaori can hear it playing on his mind, his thoughts like music through headphones playing too loud.

Kaori picks up another photograph. It’s an odd one, but not entirely unfamiliar—it is nothing like the violence of the gang culture she knew he had gone to document. It’s just a boy with blond hair, staring out a shabby New York apartment, golden light making jade eyes pop. He has appeared in a few photographs.

Eiji doesn’t mind her looking at this one (though it did take him some time), but he still cannot bring himself to look at it.

Kaori doesn’t ask about him. She never has. The sadness in his eyes is an answer enough for her. Instead, she asks him what she _hopes _is a painless question, “who gave you the chance to hold a gun first?" Kaori tries for a little, teasing grin. "I cannot imagine any Americans being so willing to hand over guns to foreigners like you.”

Eiji’s eyes become hidden under his dark bangs, and he takes the photograph back from her and tucks it into his jacket pocket, the one closest to his chest. Shame floods her immediately. It is not a painless question. It has a painful answer. “Someone who would never let me use it.”

When the answers become clipped, when she _tries _again only for it to be futile, she knows it is time for her to leave him to those musical thoughts of his. Kaori leans over and kisses her brother on the forehead, bidding him goodnight without saying a word.

His smile is enough, and she flicks out the lights to leave him with his photographs, the moon, and whatever memories haunt him still.

* * *

Kaori has never felt the need to call her brother _Nii-chan. _

To her, Eiji is just Eiji.

She remembers when she was old enough to really _know _her brother for the first time. He had always been there, a shy boy four years her senior who regarded her with disdainful awe of no longer being _the Only Child, _no longer being the _lonely child, _but there’s only one memory that really stays with her of _meeting _her brother for the first time.

Her age clouds her memory—she was two, maybe three years old? —and she’s stumbling away from the beach that her parents have taken her too. It’s not poor parenting that makes them lift her eyes from her for just a second. Maybe her mother was on the phone to the doctor, maybe her father taking a bite of watermelon and got lost in the sweet taste, but those eyes stray away from her, nonetheless.

So, Kaori wobbles towards something shiny (a rock? A shell?), feet sinking into the sand and making every step a soldier’s limp.

She’s a few tip-toes short of reaching the shiny object (a feather? A coin?) When something under her foot suddenly slips, the rocks below her wobble, and suddenly—

Suddenly screams _rip _from her throat and she’s got something to experience for the first time—

_Terror—_she’s screaming, _screaming_,

_Falling falling—_

_“Kaori!”_

And everything stops and something is soft under her and she’s still shaking and crying.

She doesn’t remember much after that (everything is spotty and foggy, like clouds over her memory), but she does remember looking up, trembling and snotty with gummy teeth, and she sees Eiji holding her, a red streak coming down from his forehead. He sees her trembling, notices her scared expression, and smiles at her.

She doesn’t say _Nii-chan _to him then. She bawls out, _“Eiji, Eiji, Eiji,_” and he hugs her nice and warm, and she experiences something else that will always be Eiji—

_Relief._

Later, her parents will tell her, when Eiji has gone to America, that he saved her life that day. 

Kaori never knew what Eiji saved her from and she doesn’t care.

That’s just the kind of person Eiji is. Shy, unassuming, and a reckless idiot who will save anyone who is in range of his love.

Her friends sometimes ask her why she doesn’t call him _Nii-chan._

She’ll just smile at them and shrug, and the words will always play like music in her head, that to her, _Eiji _means _relief, _and she’s a little stronger every time she doesn’t disguise it with other titles. 

* * *

When he comes back from America and she sees those lifeless eyes, she hopes, one day, that _Kaori _can mean _trust _to him as much as _Eiji _means _relief _to her.

* * *

Sometimes, Eiji will speak in English to hide how he feels. Usually, it’s to himself in his room.

It's not like Kaori _intends _to hear those private words. She’ll usually be in her room, having piles of homework to do, and she’ll escape the mounting pressure by going to the kitchen in the dead of night to grab a snack of some kind to distract herself.

But its when she passes by his room that she’ll hear him muttering—usually on the phone, she’s heard the names _Sing _and _Max _and _Ibe, _but they mean nothing to her and she won’t dare to ask until there’s more life in Eiji’s eyes—and she recognizes the words as English from the television dramas she watches, the ones Eiji would send her before they suddenly stopped one day.

(Once, she peeked into his room whilst he was muttering. He was staring at a photograph with those sad, lifeless eyes of his. Glassy and so, so full of loss.

She never dared to spy on him again. That wasn’t for her to see.

She'll carry that shame to her grave.)

But she passes by his room more and more (and she knows she's 'distracting' herself more than she should be) when she hears more and more English and—okay, well, she never claimed to be perfectly sensitive to Eiji’s needs. She tries, oh she _does try, _but she’s protective and only sixteen and she knows, she _knows __something _happened to him over there. Her mother may be sensitively distant and her father too weak to emotionally invest, but whatever it was that happened, it something too big, something too _raw _for him to handle alone_, _and it’s when she hears those English words accompanied by a sob does she realize something.

Halfway through her second year in high school, she is sixteen years old and Eiji is twenty years old, and she is no closer to finding out just _why _he hurts so much, why he insists on doing it alone when _everyone is here,_ by his side andtrying to support him.

So, halfway through her second year in high school, Kaori marches down to her local bookstore, maxes out her entire part-time job’s earnings for that month, and buys every single book she can about learning English and joins a local group to learn about helping someone through grief.

It takes time, of course. The classes on grief sensitivity help her recognise the symptoms Eiji won't divulge, but it's not enough. 

The first time she passes by his room, she can hear the obvious words. _Max. Ibe. Sing. Jessica._ Then the more common ones. _The. Sad. And. Banana. Fish. Missing. Lonely. Alone._

None of it makes any sense to her, and she _hates _it.

So, she pushes her math homework aside and grabs the English workbook, half-filled, half-abandoned. She swipes the apple she had stolen from the kitchen—bright green and sweet and tangy on her tongue and takes a bite as her fingers follow the phonetics.

English is trippy on her tongue—one sound becomes two, and it’s hard to keep track of what is _R _and what is _L, _that _C _can sometimes sound like _K _and _C, _but also _S, _can be combined with _H _but not, and everything is confusing and she launches that _damned book _at the wall more than once, knocking over her fan and yet—

Yet, one day, she hears it through her walls.

_“I miss Ash, Max. I miss him so much it is killing me.”_

She frowns and flips through her dictionary. _Ashu. Ash. _The accent muddles up her search a bit, but she finds the word soon enough—

_Ash. The solid remains of fires. What remains after something burns away._

Kaori frowns. Does Eiji really miss something like that? It doesn’t make any sense to her.

“This cannot be it. It does not make sense.”

Kaori instead throws her book to the wayside (her mother calls her, scolds her for the noise—she doesn’t care. Her mother has flaws, too. She saw it creeping out of the window when the stress of her father’s illness took shape in hushed phone calls and secret meetings, and Kaori pretended not to know any better), and Kaori instead uses the rarely-used English keypad on her phone to type for the meaning. It takes a moment for her to remember the words.

In the suggested searches, she sees _name meaning, _and suddenly—

Like when she fell, something clicks in her mind.

_Ash._

Kaori locks her phone and sinks down into her chair. She runs a hand through her hair and looks up at her ceiling, watching the fan spin on the shelf above her desk.

Other words don’t matter. Kaori already knows what has happened to Eiji, even if she doesn’t know the journey as to how it transpired in the first place. Ash is a boy in America, a boy with golden hair and green eyes that pop against sunsets, who broke her brother’s heart, and Eiji washed away back to Japan to try and mend it again without him. Without this Ash.

Whatever else happened doesn’t matter to Kaori, not now. Guns, violence, tragic romance. It doesn’t matter. Right now, she’s dealing with the fallout, and its Eiji with sad eyes and a sadder smile when he thinks nobody is watching. 

“Oh, _Eiji._” Kaori doesn’t bemoan the tears pricking at her eyes. “My stupid, stupid Eiji. What did you do in America to fall so deeply for someone who broke your heart so much?”

* * *

Eiji’s hair continues to grow even longer. He keeps it in a messy ponytail these days, tucked underneath a beanie when the seasons shift to winter. Kaori, however, takes the scissors nearby, glinting in the sunlight, and makes the first cut.

Earlier, written in English scrawl on cutesy notebook paper, the first words she could say to Eiji about everything slides underneath his door.

> ** _"You can trust me. If you need someone, I will listen no matter what." - Kaori._ **

Maybe it doesn’t make any sense, even though she’s confident, it could be wrong. Kaori is trying to piece English together, one little shard at a time, shaping it into something decent like the choppy bob of black hair on her head.

When she looks up in the mirror again, away from the mess of black hair in the sink and on the floor by her feet, she sees that Eiji hovers in the doorway. His hair is long and messy and not in that typical ponytail, but they are not hiding his eyes. Dark marks streak underneath them, and he seems limp, pale, and skinny. Kaori realizes, though not for the first time, that he really _is _nothing like the pole-vaulter who left bright-eyed and curious on that plane two years ago.

Yet, she wouldn’t want to force him back to that. Whatever happened to him, whatever hurt him, it _embraces _him, and she knows he doesn’t want to forget.

“It’s messy in the back.” He mutters, taking the scissors from her hands. “I’ll fix it for you.”

Kaori scowls. “I didn’t _have _a mirror for the back.” But she obliges, turning her head forward and keeping still.

“Do you just want me to even it out?”

She shrugs. “Sure.”

Eiji doesn’t respond verbally to that. Instead, he just begins to snip the stray hairs away, brushing her neck every-so-often so that he can work on keeping it even. Kaori watches her brother in the mirror, sees how he kneels a little to get perspective, working on fixing her hair like he was framing a photography shot, and she must ask,

“You’ve done this before?”

Eiji stills, just for a moment, but begins to layer the front. Her bangs begin to look less wild, but not quite tamed. “Yeah,” he starts again, not quite able to look her in the eyes. “I have.”

“In America?” 

He’s quiet for a lot longer this time. There’s a painful swallow where the words should be, and she’s taken back to that first night he came home, half-drowned with red eyes, but this time its scissors snipping instead of thunder—

“In the apartment.” Eiji corrects, "in America."

He is too quiet for Kaori to be comfortable. It is like at any moment, to him, the bathroom mirror will crack and leave nothing but a black void, leave Eiji without even a shadow to cast. But there are words playing on his mind, words singing to her like a record player, and the door is left slightly ajar. This time, Kaori _knows _he’s trying to swim upstream, to scream the words to somebody, _anybody, _and she can see in his eyes—

He’s not lifeless. He was _blocked._

Kaori doesn’t care if Eiji gets angry with her. Eiji deserves to know that he doesn’t have to bottle it all up until the glass shatters and makes water into blood.

“Did… you do this…” Kaori takes a breath. “Did you do this for, um, Ash?”

Eiji drops the scissors.

Kaori turns and puts her hands on his shoulders. “Eiji? Is something wrong?” Her heart lodged in her throat when she sees those eyes begin to go glassy, his lips caught in a half-grimaced smile. “Should I not have said that?”

Eiji says _nothing. _He just stares at the mirror, his hands still acting like the scissors never left, but his lips begin to tremble like monsoons have taken over his bloodstream, and soon enough, tears slip down his face. Painful gasps wheeze through his dry throat, and Kaori jumps back when something _raw _erupts from his throat, hair thrown into his face as it jerks forward and slams into his hands.

“Eiji!” Her brother almost collapses, Kaori rushes to catch him, and both sink toward the floor. It’s cold, everything feels like glass, but if they must drown here, Kaori is trying to keep them both afloat for as long as she can.

“Eiji, _oh, Eiji…”_

He still says nothing. Eiji grips to her like a lifeline. He curls in on himself, his breathing becoming more and more panicked in short gasps. Kaori’s hair is everywhere, and the light begins to flicker from the cheap lightbulbs her mother refuses to replace.

“Eiji, I-I can’t—just hold on to me, okay? I need to do something and then I will help you..” Kaori grits her teeth and looks around, ignoring the pressure marks her brother leaves on her arm from refusing to let go of her. It doesn't hurt. She can deal with that later.

The bathroom floor isn’t the best place for helping someone through something like this, but Eiji refuses to leave—his legs feel rooted even despite the trembling. There’s no other option, so Kaori does her best to kick the door closed and uses her toes to grab a nearby heavy towel for later.

Then, she turns back to Eiji. “Can you hear me? Nod if you can.”

He manages a shaky nod, and Kaori sighs internally with relief.

“Okay, Eiji. When I count to five, breathe inwards. When I count to seven, you should then breathe out. Do you understand me?”

When he nods again, Kaori takes that as permission to start her counting. The numbers flow from her mouth like air, and the gentle rhythm begins to sink into Eiji’s mind—or, she assumes it does, as the panicked gasps become little more than shallow shakes.

When he’s finally at a steady-enough pace, she lets her counting come to a natural end. “Eiji, I’m going to put a towel around you now. Is that okay?”

Eiji glances over at the towel she had grabbed earlier, a soft and heavy one she knows he likes to fight with her over when they both need to use the shower, and manages to say a shaky, “okay.”

Kaori grabs it and wraps it around his shoulders, and slowly he detangles himself from her arms and lies on the bathroom floor. She has no doubt the cold tiles are grounding him—Kaori learned from her group sessions that, sometimes, anxiety attacks can provoke little odd coping mechanisms. Kaori reasons that this one isn’t hurting anyone (not her, not Eiji and that is what matters), so she draws herself away to give him some space to recover.

Kaori hugs her knees, Eiji lets out a small sigh, and her head leans back against the wall.

“Kaori?”

“Yeah?”

“Where did you learn that name from?” He asks, and his voice is so small she could _cry._

She clicks her tongue and bites her lip. “Sometimes, you speak on the phone in English. I knew you weren’t ready to talk about whatever happened in America, but I’ve been worried about you, Eiji.”

Eiji stills, but he sits up and looks at her with wide eyes. She looks down, feeling the shame creep up her neck. “I did not want to invade your privacy, so I never interrupted or demanded an answer but sometimes I would hear odd words when I passed by your door. I… just wanted context, Eiji. I just wanted to know what the words I heard so much meant. They sounded painful.”

His mouth gapes. “Have you been learning English this _whole_ time?”

Kaori nods, though stiffly. “It took a while to piece it together, that much is true. English is _very _confusing. But, then I… heard you say you missed, well, uh… can I say the name?” Eiji also nods, saying nothing. “You said you missed… this _Ash_ person. And I think everything began to make sense for me.”

Eiji stiffens. “How?”

Kaori continues, and she can feel her face getting hotter. “I do not know the journey, and if you would rather me not know, that is okay,” she confesses, and finally, she looks at him again, her voice resolute and confident. “But it does not matter to me. Whatever he did when you were in America—or whatever happened to him, it broke your heart because you loved him so much. That was all I needed to know.”

Eiji, much like she guesses, does not go into a spiel of who this _Ash _is, or what he meant to him. Eiji was never a person to go for dramatic speeches, passionate rants, or even expressive anger—those all went to Kaori, really, especially with a penchant for watching American drama shows that were more like digital junk food than anything these days.

But in the quiet of their bathroom, with the rain pattering on their well-worn roof and their parents away for the evening, something begins to unfold.

Eiji slumps against the door. Kaori remains huddled underneath the sink.

“I did cut his hair, once,” Eiji says, taking a lock of his own hair and playing with it with his fingertips. “Back in our apartment.”

_Our apartment. _The context is not lost on Kaori. “Was it very long?”

_“Messy,_” he corrects, and she sees a _smile _playing on his lips. “He would never style it properly. When he woke up, he looked like a lion cub. All messy and wild.” Eiji tries to imitate it with his hands, and Kaori feels a laugh bubbling from her throat. “He would always be very grumpy whenever I pointed this out to him.”

“He did not like it when you told him off?”

There’s a small glint in Eiji’s eyes. “It did not matter if he liked it or not. I was the only one who _could._”

Kaori knows Eiji is tempting her to ask with that little tidbit of information. Despite his unassuming nature, appearing almost shy to those who did not know him, but Kaori _knows _her brother. He’s sly, coy, and a natural at prying a playful side to those he can trust. Her eyes slit to stare at him for a moment, jutting her lip into a pout as he ghosts his own smirk before she decides to try something else.

“You and Ash,” she folds her hands in her lap as her legs rest on the floor. “You were very close to one another?”

Eiji jerks his head forward, looking at her startled, almost scandalized. There’s a small, rosy hue on his cheeks. “Why would you ask about that?”

Kaori cannot help but smile. “Eiji, I am not as oblivious as you would think me to be. He allowed you to get away with telling him off. So, either he was so cold that he simply did not care about your opinion, or you were so close that he could trust you weren’t making fun of him. You would not pour so much love into a cold person, so it has to be the latter, yes?”

Eiji gawks at Kaori, and there’s a small swell of self-pride making her heart warm. Sometimes, her friends at school with gush about Eiji—about her attractive, sporty older brother who moved away to a foreign country, begging her to introduce them, maybe to get lucky. She’ll roll her eyes and claim he was taken away, spirited away to America by the promise of love and fortune, and that they, simply Japanese high-school girls, will never catch up to him.

Really, those qualities should not be gushed over. Anyone can be sporty, anyone can be attractive, and anyone can be lured by America’s junk food scent. Those qualities are just _lists _of _possibilities._

But not anyone can be Eiji.

Not anyone can be her reckless, naïve, foolish brother, who loves so much it breaks him, who tries to help others so much it bloodies his own hands. But she is lucky. Because Eiji is an open book to her, a song not yet written, and she already knows the words, for he is her _brother._

Eiji blinks at her a few times, looking like an owl before he leans against the wall and runs a hand through his long hair. “Sometimes I forget how much you are growing up.” He gives her a small, warm smile. “You should not be saying such adult words so young, Kaori.”

Kaori shrugs, sticking her tongue out. “It is not my fault you are easy for me to read.”

“Even if it were your fault, I find it to be a good thing.” Eiji reaches over and puts a hand on Kaori’s shoulder. A gentle squeeze follows, and her heart stops thrumming and calms down.

The towel falls down his back and lays forgotten.

“Thank you.”

* * *

Kaori never tells her mother what transpired in the bathroom. Neither does Eiji.

When their mother comes home with groceries balanced in one arm and keys in the other and asks about their day, Eiji looks at Kaori with a gaze reserved only for her, and she understands enough to keep the words they spoke in the bathroom a conversation locked only for them.

“Nothing, Mama.” Kaori greets, and then asks, “Would you like some help putting the groceries away?”

Eiji has already begun helping without a word, but the smile doesn’t leave him.

For now, it’s enough.

* * *

Soon, there are more names that Eiji puts into the stories that he tells her.

There is Ash, of course, and she notices that Eiji likes being able to speak to _someone _about him. The fondness in his voice is not subtle, neither is the love. Eiji speaks of Ash’s fear of pumpkins and his hatred of tofu, of his gruff personality and inability to hide how much he wanted to _care _about something, to the point where it destroyed him. Eiji grew quiet there, and Kaori hasn’t asked since.

But there are others, too. Max, Sing, Jessica, Ibe. She knows, at least, they are still alive and that Eiji can talk to them. He speaks with fond exasperation, but hesitance to see them again.

There was one other name in there, once. Shorter Wong.

Eiji has more pain there than he does for Ash, and she wonders, briefly, if Shorter was also his lost love. It is an odd name, but there are books and television shows and anime and manga that have named their character odder things, and this is someone that Kaori knows Eiji cared for.

She asks, once, what happened.

Eiji turns away from her. “It was a domino effect.” And leaves it at that.

She googles that term again on her phone—seriously _why _does Eiji insist on using odd American idioms, he knows she will be curious enough to search it up for herself—and Kaori finds herself pausing in horror at the result.

_Where one event sets of a chain of similar events. _That, with the sadness in his eyes, tells her all she needs to know.

Whoever Shorter Wong was, whatever he was to her brother, that he was someone that Eiji loved with all his heart. He was someone that Eiji loved recklessly, foolishly, shamelessly, and now his heart was broken.

Later, she found out in another quiet moment outside when her mother’s ears weren’t prying, that Ash did even more, and both of their hearts broke that day.

Sunset blazes it trails over the evening sky, dusting clouds with tinges of orange and red. The porch light is on, flickering with the cheap bulbs that Kaori’s mother refuses to replace; from the kitchen window where she has gone to grab another snack to distract from the piles of homework, Kaori bites into her apple and sees a familiar sight;

Eiji leans on the porch, a glass of whiskey in hand, sunlight shining through the beverage. He’s wearing a large blue shirt, one hand gripping the bullet wound in his abdomen. She can’t see his face; he never shows himself to anyone willingly when he’s this deep in contemplation.

Kaori closes the fridge and frowns, shaking her head. _You will drown in those thoughts of yours, Eiji. You are too young to be gasping for air when you used to fly over rivers._

Without waiting for a second thought, Kaori pushes the porch door open and stands next to her brother. He doesn’t look at her but nods when she leans her back against the porch.

“You should not keep drinking that, Eiji,” she scolds. “Tou-san already has problems with his kidneys; you should not harm your liver. You are already hurt enough.”

“It’s numbing,” Eiji says, disconnected as he swirls the whiskey around the glass before downing the rest in one gulp and set the glass down.

Kaori lets out a sad breath. “I do not want you to hurt yourself.”

“It is too late for that.” He stares into the glass, like the last droplet that escaped his throat has all the answers. “Too late for a lot of things.”

“You were dreaming again?”

Eiji doesn’t answer her, not verbally, but she knows. She already knows the silence means yes.

Idly, Kaori looks up and tries to make images out of the ashy clouds. If she squints, there may be a language she can translate that tells her everything; why school is so necessary when it stresses her brain to the point of collapse, why her parents cannot be functional, why her brother must hurt so much.

The clouds tell her nothing, as usual. Useless things, really. Just flights of fancy for romantic couples to pretend they have chemistry as they stare up to force more conversation. Kaori wonders if the clouds looked the same in New York; maybe the stars studded the pollution. She supposes she will never know.

“Shorter.”

Kaori blinks out of her reverie. “What?”

Eiji’s head has turned away from her completely. The glass is abandoned, a few droplets remaining. “Shorter Wong. That’s his full name.”

Kaori stands in shock. It’s not like she hasn’t heard the name before, screamed silently from Eiji’s lips in the middle of the night, where she pretends the walls _aren’t _that thin. She’s never been given a last name to him before, though.

_A domino effect _was all Eiji could rasp out before.

“A… friend? From New York?” She tests.

Miraculously, Eiji _nods _at her. Not only nods but even offers more words. “The best friend anyone could ask for. He was…” Eiji bows his head and laughs, but it is not a happy one. “He was so _good, _Kaori.”

_Was. _Kaori already feels something thick in her throat. “You miss him?”

Eiji covers his eyes with his hand, knocking the glass to the ground. The porchlight flickers violently. “Yes.”

Shorter Wong. A phantom of a person, really. Kaori has even less information on him than she does about Ash; with Ash, Kaori knows Eiji loves him with all his heart, someone he would drop everything in Izumo for if a lick of evidence suggested Ash was dwelling in New York still.

Shorter Wong is someone who Kaori knows nothing about, save that he was a domino effect—was he the start of the love Eiji felt in New York? Kaori doesn’t know.

Very carefully, Kaori places her hand on Eiji’s arm. He doesn’t shrug her away, so she puts another arm around his shoulders. Seldom, he’ll allow comforting contact like this; not that he is cold, but right now, Kaori knows Eiji is closed off from reflecting openly with people. Like the very act of comfort means that there is something _wrong _in the first place.

Her brother is a stubborn fool, but she loves him. He is _relief _to her; she hopes she is _trust _to him.

“I am sure he knew,” Kaori says, peering at Eiji’s face, “how much he meant to you. You are not someone who hides love easily, for better or worse.”

Eiji’s bottom lip trembles. _He knew he knew, he knew. _“He meant a lot much to me, but…” Kaori gives his arm a gentle squeeze, to encourage him to keep going. “…but Ash loved him so, so much. More than I was ever given the chance to. Both of our hearts broke that day.”

“Oh, _Eiji._”

In that quiet moment, void of Ash and Shorter and their mother’s prying ears, Eiji says nothing more about it; but he stays in the comfort of Kaori’s arms; a few tears slipping out of the dams he’s tried to build.

* * *

It’s not always easy.

Kaori is sixteen. Her brother is twenty. Their mother is of no help. Their father is too sick to care.

Sometimes, Eiji curls in bed for days at a time. Their mother never pries, never forces him to get up. Usually, she would be grateful for the indifference, but sometimes Kaori doesn’t want to just _sit by _and watch her brother waste away for someone who is _long dead._

It’s the third day when her patience snaps and she _burst _open his door.

“Eiji!”

He looks up with a start, shock dripping from his lips. “What— “

“That is _it! _I have had _enough!” _She marches over to him and glowers. “What is _with _you, wallowing in self-pity? This is three days you have been here! Get up _right _now.”

Eiji, of course, just glares back at her. “I’ve been working. I’ve eaten. Whatever else I do is none of your concern, Kaori.”

That makes her redder, blood boiling. “Like _fuck _it isn’t! If I weren’t here, you’d be living with Mother, and she doesn’t exactly _fucking _care enough that you’re becoming a corpse!” She folds her arms and gestures wildly around his room. “Look at this place! You look like you’re a NEET! When was the last time you did laundry? Or cleaned? All you do is lie in bed and look at old photographs!”

“_Kaori,_” he growls. “_Don’t you dare._”

“Dare I _will, _if it is the only way to get you out of this… this _pathetic _mood you are in?” She hears Eiji growl under his breath again, but she doesn’t stop. “It has been over _ten months, _Eiji. Maybe closer to a year, I am not sure! You need to get _over _yourself!”

“Get over—” Eiji chokes on the words and clenches his fists. “You are a _child, _Kaori, you do not understand what you are talking about. Now _shut it._”

There is so much venom in his voice that she feels it, eyes flashing hurt for a moment, and they both stop—for a moment, and then Kaori is filled with the same poison. “I may be a child, but I am _acting _like an adult whilst _you _throw tantrums like a child for people not even in the same country. Did this Ash truly break your heart so much that he made you _younger?!”_

“Kaori—”

“Did his memory truly _steal _my hard-working brother away? Must I listen to his _corpse _spout memories of a time that he keeps so vague from me?!”

“_Kaori!”_

“Why can you not just _try harder, Eiji?!”_

“_ENOUGH!”_

The walls shake as Eiji slams his fist against them, as his voice echoes as a scream and scares off the magpies pecking at their vegetable garden out in the back. Kaori takes a step back, her eyes showing terror, and clenches her fist as his glare _doesn’t lessen._

“You will not get angry at me for things you do not understand.”

Kaori bites back with, “you do not let me understand, Eiji. All you do is close yourself off. Do not react so violently when I am confused and hurting for you.”

Kaori turns on her heel and leaves, and Eiji does not follow. Her having the last words is a hollow victory.

There are no winners this time.

* * *

(When Kaori thinks of _Eiji, _she thinks _relief._

When she sees Eiji looks at Kaori, she wonders if all he sees is a child using words she doesn’t understand.

The art of compromise: intentions and perspective are not interchangeable.)

* * *

When Kaori was thirteen, when Eiji was seventeen, her brother gets the news that he will never pole-vault again. There was an accident that happened at practice before he had a chance to go pro, and he was told that an important bone had twisted and shattered, and something of him was left behind in the last spring he managed before the fall.

It’s something of a bittersweet relief: now that Eiji has no future in pole-vaulting, he is free to work a part-time job that provides a stable income to help their mother, whilst their father goes into hospital for kidney problems.

A life for a life, he said, and Kaori feels terrible that she’s relieved.

“Don’t you feel sad? This was your entire future.” She asks.

Eiji comes back from his part-time job at the supermarket, carrying some apples in a brown paper bag. He tosses her one, and she takes a large bite, and he smiles.

“Of course, I do.”

She frowns at him, speaking past her bitten apple. “Then… why do you not act like it? You lost everything, didn’t you?”

“I don’t see it that way.” Eiji, still smiling, just shrugs at her. “Even if I did, I don’t mind. Because this way, I’m still helping someone.”

She eyes him for a moment. “You are _so_ weird, Eiji.”

“Perhaps.” He gives her a little, wry grin. “Is your _Nii-chan _not cool enough for you anymore, Kaori? Is that why you ask me such odd questions?”

“Ugh, _gross!” _She sticks her tongue out and bats him away with her hand. “You were _never _cool, Eiji. Do not try and flatter yourself.”

* * *

(Thirteen-year olds, sixteen-year-old Kaori realizes, are so stupid.

To lose everything in the blink of an eye, and to only think of it being positive in that you can help someone else? Yeah, there’s no denying what she already knows. It’s flashing above her eyes like cobalt-tipped lightning.

Eiji has _always _been the coolest.)

* * *

Daylight is eclipsed by the sunset when Eiji finds her again.

She’s been to the beach many times when Eiji wasn’t here. Kaori isn’t always the best at handling pressure; she’s a firecracker, just waiting for the heat to lick at her heels before she’s running in the opposite direction, blowing up in the wrong direction and leaving everyone else’s ears ringing from the display.

She knows what she’s capable of, but not yet able to stop it, and that is the joy of being a teenager with the pressure of _who are you going to grow into _plaguing your mind above all else.

So, the beach became her little slice of heaven. It’s a place Eiji saved her, many years ago, and now she’s tall enough that she can jump down from heights with only sore toes to worry about. Kaori dips her feet in the salty water, just off the wooden fishing port, ignoring the growing social media notifications on her phone.

Once, her friends told her that fireflies danced on these beaches. They elected to ignore the fact they were all trying shots of alcohol for the first time and squinting at streetlights doesn’t equal seeing lightning bugs rising from the sea.

Now, she’s ignoring their messages demanding her time and attention, not because she doesn’t love them, but because she’s so _tired. _

“I thought I would find you here.”

Kaori’s eyes widen and she looks over her shoulder. Eiji takes a seat next to her, holding up a can of vending-machine coffee. With her lip jutting out again, she swipes it from his hand and takes a sip, before downing the entire thing in one go and wiping her lips.

“I’m not saying thank you.”

“I know.” He says, rolling his eyes.

“I’m still mad at you. I will not apologize for what I said.”

Eiji leans forward so his elbows rest on his thighs, and he stares down at the water. “Kaori, I cannot demand an apology from you, but you _do not _understand what I went through there. I know—” He holds up a hand before she can interject. “I know I am not always open about what happened, and I did not think of how that would affect you. But what happened over there is just…”

He hangs his head. “It is too painful for me to talk about right now, maybe always. There are things you won’t believe, or it would make you too over-protective if you do believe it. Maybe that is presumptuous of me, maybe I am assuming too much, but I cannot take the risk. Please, _please _understand that.”

The sea laps around her ankles, tickling her knees as it splashes up.

Kaori reaches over and touches his hand. Eiji looks up at her, uncertain.

“Then find someone who _can, _Eiji.”

His mouth hangs open. “Kaori?”

“If I cannot be the one you trust because I am too close to this, then find someone who _can _help you, Eiji.” She holds his hand tighter. “I know Mother would not be understanding—sometimes this country is not… kind to those who have mental trauma. I have done what I can to be understanding, to be patient, but maybe I demand too much of you.”

Eiji looks like he could cry from her words. Kaori finds that the tears are already slipping down her face. “_Please, _Eiji, find someone who _can_ help you. If you ask me not to pry, then it is fair that I will ask this of you. I just want you to be _well._”

It takes a moment, but she feels Eiji’s fingers curl around hers, and he leans his head on her shoulder. “Okay,” he breathes. “Okay.”

* * *

Two weeks later, around her father’s hospital bed (he has just been given the all-clear to come back home after another check-up) Eiji suddenly announces that he is transferring to a university in Tokyo to continue his degree in photography.

Her mother cries out of relief. His father is stony in silence, but nods.

Kaori gives him a hug and says in clear English, _“I am getting your room.”_

Eiji laughs a watery thing and hugs her back. _“Fuck off, no you are not,” _he chokes back out, and then all words are lost in odd laughter that only siblings will understand.

* * *

One month later, and eleven months since returning home, Eiji has packed up everything he owns into three suitcases and one box. There are clothes and shoes and his laptop in the first; books and photography supplies in the second; and ordinary kitchen supplies in the third. The box has sentimental photographs that he keeps zipped in his hiking-rucksack, as well as his smaller tablet and medications and documentation.

Kaori’s mother couldn’t bear to see Eiji off at the train station, and her father is still sick, so Kaori is the one to bid him a final farewell.

Her brother is twenty years old, she sixteen, and he is not the same wide-eyed boy that left for America two years ago. He is not the rain-soaked nineteen-year-old that came home last year, though the rain is falling now.

He is Eiji. Forever changing. From steel to ivory to glass, and now he is spun into crystal.

“You will call Mother when you get to your new apartment, yes?” Kaori folds her arms and her brow raises. “You know she will worry.”

“I _know, _Kaori.” Eiji signals for his second suitcase—marked _fragile _in bold red ink—to be loaded on, glancing at her over his shoulder and smirking. “Or is that an excuse so _you _will know I am safe?”

She raises a middle finger at him. “Do not push it, Eiji.”

“You are becoming more American by the minute.” Eiji shakes his head, and the last suitcase is loaded onto the train. His shoulders relax, his hands come out of his pockets. “So, this is it.”

Kaori tilts her head and grins. “This is it. You are off on another journey.” She pokes his shoulder. “Why do you look so sad?”

“I just…” He rubs the back of his neck. “I promised… Ash. I would show him around Izumo one day. And now I am leaving it virtually unexplored.”

_Oh._

Kaori cups her chin for a moment. “I can explore it for you. I can take pictures on my phone.” She holds the device up. “The camera is not as good as your inane contraption, but I can take nice photographs of sunsets and stray kittens. You _did _say he was like a lion, yes? I can plaster them all over your _new bedroom _for when you come back.”

Eiji looks like he doesn’t know whether to be horrified that Kaori fully intends on _stealing his bedroom _or touched that she would do something like this for him. Kaori prides herself on being able to be one of the few people to piss off Okumura Eiji _and _make him want to cry in the span of five seconds.

It’s her uncanny ability on being a little sister: knowing him better than anyone else in the world and being able to _fucking aggravate _him.

Eiji swallows something down. “Would you really do that for me?”

Oh. He’s chosen the sentimental side. Now Kaori just feels embarrassed. The flush stretches up from her neck, making her ears turn pink, and she grumbles, “yeah, whatever—”

She’s cut off by a hug. Eiji wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, and her heels lift off of the ground as he cries a few _“thank you’s” _into her shoulder, over and over, until she’s crying too and hugging him back so tightly she can feel how painful each heartbeat is for him.

Since he got back, Kaori realizes, he’s been swimming upstream, but the water has been drowning him. Eiji has always been a pole-vaulter, always been able to jump over walls and ignore the crashing rivers, but now he’s had to learn how to swim and despite Kaori trying to reach him, her arms were never quite long enough—

But now she can, and they’re swimming together.

One day, they’ll climb that waterfall. One day, Eiji will fly again, and Kaori can watch as the world _fucks off _and stops hurting her brother.

They owe him one day where his heart doesn’t fracture. If they try, she’ll _kill _them.

* * *

She waves him off two minutes later.

Kaori watches until the train is but a speck in the sunset, imagines jade eyes popping out against the golden backdrop, before turning on her heel to return to Izumo’s familiar streets.

On her way home, she sees an apple tree, red fruit beginning to blossom. She pauses, puts down her bag, and captures the moment in a photograph.

Kaori doesn’t know Ash. She never will. But he was important to Eiji.

So, all of this, she decides, is for Eiji _and _Ash.

When she gets home, Kaori doesn’t bother to kick off her sneakers and put on her house slippers. She marches straight up to her bedroom, ignoring the lack of her mother’s presence (the neighbor’s porch light is on; she _knows _what that means), before pausing.

Eiji’s bedroom is now virtually empty, save for a few boxes of clothing he couldn’t fit. Kaori’s hand is still in her jacket pocket, hand on her phone, mind still racing from watching her brother leave for Tokyo.

_He’s gone, now. And I made a promise to him._

Kaori has never been one for commitment, not really. She likes what she likes, dislikes things that require maintenance. The piles of homework on her desk can attest to that. But see, Eiji? Eiji is her older brother, and she feels affection for the shadows he casts in Ash’s memory. 

Her desk chair’s wheels squeak with the sudden weight she throws onto it, turning on her computer and linking it to Eiji’s old printer (he let her have it after departing to Tokyo). She rummages through her drawers of wires (when did she get _this many chargers?!_) before finding her phone’s USB cable and hooking up her phone to it.

The photograph of the apple tree looks blurry when stretched out onto A4 paper. There’s colour distortion in the corners of the frames.

Kaori grabs a drawing pin anyway, goes into Eiji’s room, and kneels. Her eyes scan until she finds the perfect spot—right in the middle of the wall—and pins up the picture of the tree.

“This,” she decides then and there, “is where it starts.”

Kaori then pulls out the second photograph she printed off. She never told Eiji that she did this; once, when he was out, she flicked through his old photo album and saw Ash’s photograph for the first time. A simple one, with Ash’s arm, slung around her brother’s shoulders, but Eiji treasured it. She could tell that much.

She’d snapped a picture of it, so if he ever lost it, she would have a backup. Now, it serves a different purpose. Kaori sits, cross-legged, cutting around the picture until it is just the figure of Ash and Eiji, and pins it up underneath the apple tree. It doesn’t _quite _work as a seamless transition from New York to Izumo; the lighting is all wrong, the proportions don’t match. But it’s enough, for now.

Maybe Ash will never make it to Izumo. But here, now, at least there are pictures.

Kaori leans her finger forward, poking Ash’s picture on the face. “You,” she says, “have caused my brother a lot of pain by being gone. He cries a lot for you; watches your pictures like a lovelorn puppy. I cannot even do your American tradition of a _shovel talk._”

She lifts her hand away, resting her head on it instead, and smiles. “He loves you a lot, you know. Ash, is it not? Such a strange name, I thought. But then,” a small laugh follows, “he is such a strange brother. A strange person. He was so scared and nervous after his accident. Now, he has eyes of steel. I have never seen Eiji look like this.”

“Perhaps,” Kaori says with half-lidded eyes, “perhaps he never had anything to fight for until he forged a bond with you. Not one he was born into, either.”

Outside, Izumo begins to get busy. Cars begin to rule the roads where children used it as their pavements. People linger near coffee shops to get their fix of caffeine. Kaori is quite happy, tucked in this little bubble, imagining Ash right in front of her.

“He loves you,” Kaori says, a fact like no other. “And now, he is trying to mend without you. So, if you can hear this... if you are able… please make the sunshine in his days shine brightly. He closed himself off in the dark for so long, I believe he needs that.”

Like the sun, Kaori rises and spares Ash one last look over her shoulder.

“It was nice to meet you, Ash. I am glad my brother found you." She turns away and smiles. "Enjoy your time in Izumo.”

* * *

**Five Months Later:**

Three-hundred and seven photographs line Eiji’s new bedroom wall. Most of them are of sunsets and sandy beaches, stray kittens and collared dogs, but there are others, too.

The old supermarket where Eiji had his first part-time job. The chapel where her mother and father got married. The recycling plant where Kaori managed to get her first job as an administrative assistant two months ago. The back of her friend’s newly braided hair. The small dessert shop where Eiji always said he would take his first love out on a date.

In the centre is the apple tree. It’s out of focus, a bit blurry—nothing compared to her newer photographs—but the light is golden, and the timestamp is on the photograph reminding her of Eiji’s new beginning. She can be as sentimental as Eiji sometimes. Kaori eventually graduated from her phone camera to a polaroid she bought off the internet (she decorates the case with cute stickers she designs on her small drawing tablet), but really, any photograph is good for now.

From the sounds of Eiji’s texts, he seems to like it well enough.

She’s sticking up another photograph when her phone alerts her to a new post on _Instagram, _and she smiles when she sees that Eiji has posted—it’s some black and white photograph of a married couple he met in his new university, they’re looking out of a skyscraper restaurant as a plane passes them by, but it feels oddly nostalgic.

He’s good. Kaori likes the picture and puts a few thumbs-up emoticons as a comment, before tucking her phone back into her pocket.

“_Kaori!”_

She stops for a moment. “Yes, Mama?”

“_I am leaving for work now! Do you need anything before I go?”_

Ever since her father had come back, Kaori’s mother had finally quit her old job and was now working at a small family restaurant that had opened up not a few months after Eiji had left, finding love in the atmosphere of being able to _cook _for a _living _instead of some random retail-chain store. Seeing her mother so happy… it let the weight from her shoulders leave.

Kaori grinned. “No, I am fine! Have a good evening at work!”

_“I will! I will see you later, Kaori!”_

“Bye, Mama!” The door clicked shut, and Kaori let out a sigh of relief that she had the house to _herself _for a few hours.

Her eyes drifted to the piles of homework still on her desk in the other room, before she looked at the clock. She stood up with resolve, marching out towards the hallway… and went straight to her computer instead.

“One hour of gaming. Then I will do my homework.”

She’s a dirty liar. It stretches out to three hours before she finds her fingers cramping, and reasons that is a good enough excuse to stop her from doing any homework at all for that night. She wouldn’t want to lose her ability to write _entirely, _after all. Kaori stretches in her chair and clicks her shoulders, before shutting off her computer and going back down to the kitchen for a snack.

She’s halfway through biting her apple when her phone suddenly lets out a shrill ring (it's an old opening song from an anime she used to watch a few years ago; the ending had been too tragic for her to watch), and she flicks it open.

"Yes?" She says, halfway-swallowing. "Can I help you--"

_"Kao-chan!" _A siren-like scream makes Kaori's ears want to bleed; coupled with the nickname, she _shudders. _She swallows her apple and listens to the rest of the ensuing conversation. _"Did you hear about the American looking for you?"_

Kaori scrunches up her nose. _American? _"I do not understand what you mean, Tama." Kaori leans against the wall with a sigh. "I do not know of any American that would be looking for _me. _Are you sure it is not someone for my brother?"

_"No, no! It has to be for you! Your brother would not have any friends this pretty looking for him so_ urgently." Kaori just rolls her eyes - what was it the Americans called this, heteronormative? - as Eiji would have _plenty _of handsome men looking for him if he would only open up more. Tama's shrill voice carries on. "_This is a very handsome man, maybe your age! He was looking for the Okumura house, so I sent him your way! Please tell us about him when you are in school!" _

"Right," Kaori clips with a tired, amused grin. "This American boy, are you sure he wasn't a friend of my brother's? He made many in America-"

_"Like I said! He is far too pretty. I have not seen eyes that green before! Oh, I hope if you break his heart, you send him my way! Anyway--" _

Kaori hangs up the phone with a start, eyes going wide. _A jade-eyed American boy. _

The knock on the door only sends her feet _flying, _apple still in her hand as she dashes toward the front of the house. Dread pools in her stomach. 

_It's not possible. It cannot be. _

Kaori pulls open the door with the force of a hurricane fleeing from thunder. The apple falls to the floor, half-eaten and abandoned. Kaori stands there with wide eyes.

Someone stands there, staring back at her equally shocked. “I’m sorry for being here so late. I just—Is this, uh…” Clumsy Japanese pours out of a blond man's mouth. His jade eyes pop out against the evening sky. “I was told, ah... is this where the Okumura family lives?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the image is qulfeeh (aka Sarah)! I commissioned her to do it and she did an amazing job! Here are her social media links:   
https://twitter.com/qulfeeh  
https://qulfeeh.tumblr.com/


	2. the koi is waterfall climbing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaori comes to a judgment about Ash Lynx.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there is mild sexual assault (groping) in this chapter. The scene is from the words, "There’s an older man who uses a cane that boards the train with shaky steps", and the scene ends at, "drags Ash out by his ear." The scene after directly correlates with confronting the victim-blaming mentality. Whilst it is only brief, it is there, so feel free to skip if you don't want to read.

“_Apples_,” Kaori once says to Eiji over a static-filled sea, pixels distorting up both their images on the computer, “_are all over English proverbs. If an apple does not fall far from a tree, it means a child is a little different than their parents. If you are the apple of someone’s eye, you are a positive reflection of that person. Yet, it was an apple that leads to humanity’s expulsion from an all-loving garden._” She was rather proud of the laugh that she drew from Eiji when she finished with a clipped,_ “English is too fucking confusing.” _

The apple rolls until it’s kissing the strange, blond man’s wing-tipped shoes. He spares it a passing look, but he grows more and more unnerved as the seconds' tick by and tries to hide it by adjusting his glasses far more than needed.

He’s a handsome man, Kaori will give him that. The boy in the photographs looked rugged, untamed, but relishing in his freedom. This version of him—Ash, was it? She can’t quite remember the names to the faces without her photography book— he seems far cleaner, more put-together.

He’s standing there now, his long hair trimmed back with tidier bangs (though there is golden stubble specked on his face), black-framed glasses resting on a blush-dusted nose, and he’s constantly fiddling with something inside his black coat. 

Still, he has a youthful look about his eyes. Wild. Searching. _Yearning. _

“I, ah, I’m sorry—” Kaori jumps when he suddenly clears his throat. “My Japanese isn’t the best—would English be better? I’m looking for the—”

“I understood you the first time,” Kaori clips back in English, folding her arms and frowning. “Who are you?”

There’s a little bit of shame at the twisting delight she gains by unnerving this man, but it can’t be helped. For with those jade eyes popping out against the golden sunset, that blond hair that she’s seen taped all over Eiji’s room, whatever answer out of his mouth is going to rest _heavily _on whether or not it results in her backhanding this boy—man?—in the face.

Nobody gets away with breaking Eiji’s heart as he has.

Yet, it is at times like these, she _wishes _her father or mother were here. They can handle being an adult better than her; she’s only just starting to practice personal responsibility, let alone deal with the physical manifestation of her brother’s emotional, American fallout right in front of her.

The American (she can tell from his accent and how he fumbles over her family name—it’s a Brooklyn accent, Kaori deduces) nods at her stiffly, and she can tell his nerves are making his fingers shake.

He stuffs them into his pockets when he sees her looking at them.

“A-Aslan,” he stammers, the name tripping over his tongue like he forgot it. “My name is Aslan Callenreese. I’m looking for a friend of mine. Eiji Okumura?”

Kaori glares at him through slit eyes. “I see.” _Liar. _“Well, yes, this is the Okumura's house. You must have traveled a long way to get here. Would you like to come inside to talk more, _Aslan_?”

Whatever venom is in her voice is enough to make ‘Aslan’s’ entire body tense up, but he follows her without argument. She notices that he’s kicking off his shoes in the doorway and hanging up his coat on the hangers but doesn’t say a word to her as he closes the door behind him.

* * *

A week after Kaori bid goodbye to Eiji after he left for Tokyo, the pressure of trying to decide her future breaks her resolve.

It wasn’t such a huge deal really, especially when she looks back on it. Embarrassment floods through her when she thinks about it, but it happened, and she can’t ignore it. So, instead, she replays it over and over until she can picture it like a movie on a screen. One moment she’s looking through Maths equations, letting the numbers fly around her head like vaulting athletes, and then—

Then she wasn’t sure what happened, except her legs are tingling and her mind is screaming at her like a foghorn. Pages scattering onto her floor as she curls up and struggles to remind her body to breathe, _breathe Kaori, the numbers won’t solve themselves, everything revolves around every single of these answers being right—_

Somehow in her panic and sweaty skin and shaking limbs, she remembers technology exists and calls the first number that she thinks of when she craves relief.

It picks up after the second ring, a voice through a sea of static. “_Kaori,” _Eiji scolds, _“I told you to give me a few days before calling—”_

“E-Eiji—I—I can’t—”

Immediate concern fills his tone. “_Kaori? What happened? What’s wrong?”_

“H-Hard to—to breathe—c-count—”

_“Count? Count what?” _He hums to himself in an anxious panic, before something seems to click for him, and he clarifies, _“five in, seven out? Is that what you need me to do?”_

“Y-Yes—” She wheezes, grips the carpeted floor for purchase.

Eiji walks her through her frenzy like he is explaining his breakfast routine; he counts with her until her breathing evens out, get’s her to describe one thing for each of her senses (touch: soft carpet. Smell: pencil shavings. Sight: her messy futon. Sound: the sound of her computer’s fans. Taste: the apple-skin lodged in her teeth. He’s put off by the last one).

She doesn’t get up from the floor, but Kaori puts the phone on loudspeaker and keeps it near her eyes as she closes them.

“_Do you want to talk about it?” _Eiji asks, in that gentle voice of his.

And, really, she does. “I am so _scared_, Eiji.”

_“Yeah? Of what?”_

She sniffs, swallowing something down. “I hate it _all, _Eiji.”

Everything pours out of her mouth at once; it’s like someone has cut a fountain pen and ink splatters all over the floor. “I hate homework. I hate thinking of university. I hate that I must decide what to be now. I just want more time to _think _without everyone pushing me to define everything _right now_.”

Cries overtake her body, and ugly, _ugly _sobs make all of her limbs shake and she kicks, screams obscenities in English that her mother is only _just _starting to notice are not polite words; and she hates it all, she hates that everyone wants her to decide her future, wants time not just to think but to waste just _enjoying _her youth; she wants to fall in love recklessly and have close-calls and scares, she wants to learn to drive and to travel to Korea and wants to go to London and try awful British food; she wants to learn to cook and clean and ignore that she knows how to do that so she learns everything in a panic—

_“You have that time, Kaori.”_

She stops. “What?”

Eiji laughs softly, static not disguising the fondness. _“Kaori, you have that time to waste. What are you so worried about?”_

Kaori shoots up and grabs the phone. “I-I do _not! _You heard what I said, yes? Everyone is expecting me to know what to do right _now_—”

_“Since when do you care what other people think of you, Kaori?_” She can hear the smile in his voice._ “You never have before. I thought I lead a better example for you than that.” _

Sometimes, Eiji just must go and say something that feels like a kick to the teeth. It forces Kaori to reassess everything she thought she knew about her brother, and that is _too annoying. _

Eiji, truly, is too aggravating and nobody will ever believe her if she _tries _to prove it.

Kaori cradles the phone to her cheek and closes her eyes. “I do not know what to do, Eiji. I am not you.”

_“I know, I know,_” he says, _“you are far better. If everyone does not like the choices you make for yourself, know I will always be on your side. But it is your life, Kaori. Nobody else can decide what you want to do._”

She hugs her knees. “Will you stay on the phone with me for a little longer?”

_“Of course. For as long as you need me, Kaori.”_

* * *

In her opinion, instant coffee is disgusting. Much better to get it from a coffee shop. Yet, it is what this ‘Aslan’ requests when Kaori asks if he wants a drink, so with a scrunched-up nose, she makes it for him whilst he sits on their modest couch in the other room.

“Would you like any sugar with it? Or milk, perhaps?” She doesn’t bother tacking on the usual, _please. _

“Uh, yes. Please. I’d appreciate that, thank you.” He, on the other hand, seems to saturate the conversation in pleasantries; they converse in English for now, his Japanese being clumsy and barely comprehensible. He doesn’t specify any further, and Kaori can’t bring herself to care enough to ask.

She taps the spoon on the mug for his coffee; she lets her oolong-citrus infuser brew for a little longer before removing it, and then it begins; she and this ‘Aslan’ sit opposite each other, awkwardly glancing when the other takes a sip of their hot drink, listening as Izumo carries on life around this odd little pocket of time that she has steered him into.

“So,” she begins, and he stops mid-way through another sip to look at her, “you are looking for Eiji?”

Visibly, this ‘Aslan’ brightens. “Yes, I am. I, ah…” He rubs the back of his neck. “All I had was his house address because I didn’t really have a phone number for him—wait, I suppose I could have gotten it through Ibe, but that would have taken too long and I needed to—”

“You are talking too fast.” Kaori cuts him off, her glare is akin to a blade. “I cannot understand you if you do that. Speak slower.”

The nervousness creeps up on him again. “_Shit. _I mean—” He ducks his head down and sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry. It’s a bad habit.”

_Of many, I suspect. _“It is fine.” _No, it is not. _“How do you know my brother?”

Something about that brings a smile to his face. “Yeah, I thought you were his little sister. Kaori, right?” She nods. His smile grows. “Of course, you are. You’ve got the same eyes.”

Like her brother when he speaks of Ash, this Aslan has the same brightness in his eyes when the topic turns to Eiji. “He spoke of you a few times in America. He always said you were a firecracker. Said you made him a love charm, too.”

She ignores the comparison (it is one people have made before), though her heart warms that even over there, through whatever hell he was going through, _he didn’t forget about her. _“You are a friend he met whilst he was over there, then?”

‘Aslan’ swallows hard. “Yeah,” he nods, “I am. Is he, uh, is he here?”

“No.” At this, ‘Aslan’ looks _crushed. _“He has not been here for five months. He moved away.”

“Oh.” He rasps out. “I see.”

Kaori stands up, nursing her warm cup of tea as she stares out of the window. “He has gone to another University in Tokyo, to complete his degree in photography. He did it to move forward with his life.” _Away from the grief the memory of you brought to him._ In the reflection, she sees this ‘Aslan’ lift his head. “He has never mentioned an _Aslan _from when he was in America to me_._”

“I—”

“He has only ever mentioned an _Ash._”

She watches for a moment, in the glass reflection of the window. Outside, teenagers on bikes cluster on street corners, exchanging snacks from the local store. In her home, those jade eyes that pop against sunset backdrops _shimmer, _and she has her answer.

“Ash is short for Aslan,” Ash breathes, too quiet to really be for her.

This time, the smirk is painted on Kaori’s lips, but it fades as soon as she thinks Ash can possibly spy it on her. “I thought it was you. I had to be sure, however, before I spoke more.” She turns back to Ash, still nursing her cup in her hands. “He was trying to move forward with his life, though he will not tell us what happened over there. With such little knowledge, you can understand why I am keeping you at… what was the term he used once.” She snaps her fingers, searching her brain for the right words. Bilingualism has it's drawbacks at times. “Ah. I am keeping you at arm’s length?”

“Yeah, I get it.” Ash looks ready to bolt, a deliriously happy smile clouding his eyes. “So, that means—he-he’s in Tokyo? Right now? That’s where Eiji is?”

“That is where Eiji is right now, yes.” She raises a brow at his naivety. _Surely a former gang-member would not be so optimistic at the thought of a reunion. Does his love blind him so much?_ “You do realize Tokyo is very big, yes? Your Japanese is clumsy and horrible, and very few places will cater to your odd style of English. How do you expect to find him with such little tools to assist you?”

“Well, I—” Ash pouts, before giving way to a crestfallen grimace. “I guess I’ll… figure it out? Maybe?” His shoulders go lax. This is a man of a weighted, broken heart, Kaori realizes. He and Eiji are twinned in painful heartbeats. Yet, Ash looks so full of _life _when he tells her, “I just need to see he’s okay. _Really _okay. That’s all I need.”

Kaori’s eyes stay trained on Ash for a few minutes, can see how he tenses the longer the silence drags out. But, gradually, her gaze lifts toward the doorway, to the small travel case tucked in the corner, useful only for when Eiji makes short trips and buys extra things from home, then takes it to University. He forgot it, this time.

She takes a sip of her tea like it is a shot of liquid courage. Oh, she already _knows _the fallout that will result from this. “Well,” she sighs. “I _have_ already been planning to journey to Tokyo to visit him this weekend.”

“Wait, seriously?” Ash’s head _shoots _up at that mention. “Aren’t you in high-school? Don’t you have a bunch of stuff to do?”

“It is all sorted for this weekend, I have the time.” She lies. “So that is why I was starting to pack for my trip to see Eiji before you came knocking on the door. I suppose it will not do me any harm to allow you to accompany me.” Kaori pins her gaze on him from behind her cup, hiding her pursed lips. “Is that acceptable?”

“_Yes!” _Ash realizes his outburst and adjusts his glasses. “I mean, yeah, that’s—” He clears his throat, a rough sound. “That’s fine, Kaori.” Try as he might, he cannot hide the elation in his voice and turns his head away from her to hide his smile, taking his mug again and lifting it to his lips. “Thank you.”

* * *

Kaori knows her packing is haphazard at best, trying to book train tickets on her phone at the same time as organizing everything, but keeping Ash waiting any longer would have drawn his curiousity, and it is a matter of _pride _that this American stranger not see how disorganized she has become.

Once she has jammed everything she can think to bring into the small travel case, she lugs it downstairs and looks for her satchel. Ash, to her complete lack of surprise, still looks to the door like some sort of excitable puppy ready for his evening walk. If she squints, she can almost see a tail wagging behind him.

Ash then sees her coming down the stairs and meets her just shy of a few steps. “Do you need some help?”

“I can manage fine, thank you.” Kaori is sure it is her pride talking, so she refuses him. Once she has it at the base of the stairs, she glances for her satchel… before pausing at the blue backpack on the floor next to his feet, and her eyebrows furrow. “Ash,” she draws his attention, “where is all of _your _luggage?”

“Huh?”

Kaori gestures to the backpack. “This cannot be all that you have brought with you, yes? This backpack is barely enough room for the essentials for a hike, let alone a long trip to Japan.” She narrows her eyes at him. “Aslan. Were you planning on my brother compensating you for everything else?”

“What? No!” An indignant huff follows before he deflates. “No, I didn’t—I didn’t think, really. I’m just used to traveling light.”

There’s something more to that statement. She can see it behind those jade eyes of his, the ones he hides from everyone else. Eiji does the same thing, though he hides his eyes behind his hair. Kaori has yet built a full picture of Ash in her head, but the pieces are there, begging to be put together like a ruined puzzle piece.

She massages her temples and sighs, her eyes drifting upstairs. “I will loan you something.” She decides, crossing her arms and looks back upstairs. “I am certain that Eiji still has old clothes he has forgotten here.”

“Uh—he’s smaller than me, Kaori.”

_He does know Eiji well, it seems. _She waves her hand to dismiss Ash’s comment. “He wears over-sized things very often these days.” She pointedly ignores the way Ash swallows hard at _that _fact, at the cherry blush that dusts his nose. “And he is a fair bit taller than when he left for America. Something will fit you.”

Kaori swipes her cherry-red satchel and marches back upstairs, going back into the boxes Eiji left behind. They were old things of his, things he didn’t bother taking with him, but couldn’t bear to throw away (Eiji was like their mother at times; too sentimental). It, admittedly, takes a little rummaging to see if there is something appropriate, but she manages to find a cream-colored sweater Eiji wore to a karaoke night once, a pair of old sweatpants he used to use for his morning runs, and a blue scarf he abandoned in favour of their mother’s hand-knitted one.

She bundles the items up into a paper grocery bag and is about to head back downstairs when she spies the photographs still in piles on her bedroom floor.

Kaori eyes the stairway and sees Ash scrolling down some website on his phone, so she takes the chance to duck back into her (admittedly chaotic) room. It only takes a moment, but Kaori piles all the photographs and large photo album into the main pocket of her satchel, taking along her polaroid camera for good measure, before re-joining Ash.

“Here,” she shoves the bag against him but pulls out the scarf before he even gets a chance to open it up. “It will be cold walking to the station. Put this on.”

“Uh—” He’s left winded, holding the scarf as Kaori marches on in front. “Thanks?”

Kaori says nothing, ignoring him as she pulls out her keys to lock the door. She figures she will leave him with a moment to catch Eiji’s scent on the scarf. She is not without mercy.

* * *

(She’s lying, of course: Ash is clearly lovesick, and it’s gross to think about her brother being _mushy _with someone this much like a _puppy_.)

* * *

“So… Eiji is in Tokyo studying photography?”

Kaori must admit: Ash is very persistent in trying to talk to her. He trails after her like a little puppy, trying to latch onto any information he can pry out of her about Eiji. She would find him sweet if he wasn’t so _annoying _about it.

“Yes.”

At her clipped response, he draws back. “Cool.”

The walk is awkward. So very, very awkward. Tension could become glue with how hard it is to walk through. Perhaps not helped by Kaori’s hostility, but she doesn’t owe him anything more than she has already given to him.

“Does he know we’re coming?”

“He has important exams to do today,” she lies and doesn’t feel ashamed at not feeling guilty about it. “I will not distract him with news of your arrival.”

“Right. So, he… doesn’t know I’m here.” Kaori genuinely can’t tell if he feels relief or disappointment. Maybe, in this instance, they are twinned emotions. “Okay, so he’ll be… surprised when we get there? He doesn’t mind surprises.”

_He may react to seeing his dead lover back from the grave. _Kaori thinks, a little spitefully.

They’re turning a corner when Kaori stops for a moment, putting her hands in her pockets. “Oh,” she sighs. “That is a shame.”

Ash glances around. “Something wrong?”

“Not really,” she says, shaking her head as she points to a stump, overtaken by decay. “There used to be a beautiful apple tree on this corner. I took a photograph of it when Eiji left for Tokyo.” Another sigh leaves her. “It is a shame it is no longer here. It must have been recently cut, too.”

Eiji puts his hands into his pockets, sparing a passing glance. “You could always plant another when you get home?”

“Maybe.” Kaori grabs the handle of the travel case again. “Anyway, we are not far from the station, so let us keep moving—”

_“So, it really was true! The American boy really was looking for you, Kao-chan!”_

The moment she hears those siren-like screeches, Kaori feels her eye begin to twitch. She plasters on a fake smile, crammed with pleasantries and poisoned with disdain, and claps a hand to her cheek. “Ah, hello!”

One of her classmates comes up with a little grin. “We heard there was an American searching for your house! And—” One of them squeals. “You have a travel case! Is he your boyfriend?” She gasps. “Are you going to a _love hotel?!”_

_Damn Izumo and it’s a penchant for gossip. _She curses internally, before shaking her head. “Ah, you have this all wrong! This is so _embarrassing…_” She _hates _how girlish and ‘moe’ her voice is getting. “He is married to a family member. He got the wrong address and the foolish man did not call our phone! I am showing him to the train station so I can reunite him with his lover.”

Not entirely untrue. Her classmates seem skeptical. “So, he is _not _your lover…?”

“No! No, no.” Kaori _grimaces. _“He is like my _Nii-chan, _really.”

She can see the sulks coming from a mile away. Seeing that there is no gossip for their little fangs to sink into, they bid her a quiet farewell and leave her be. Kaori doesn’t usually have people talk to her in school except about her brother, or gossip.

Once the girls are far enough away, she breathes a sigh of relief.

“Did…” Kaori freezes at the _smugness _in Ash’s tone. “Did you just call me your _brother?”_

Her head snaps around, and her eyes are narrowed. “I had to come up with _something._”

“I’m flattered, Kaori. Really, I am.”

That _godforsaken grin _still hasn’t left his mouth. She clenches her fists in the pockets of her jacket. “You are a foreign boy asking for my household by _name. _I am a single teenage girl, and we are _walking to a train station together. _What did you _think _people would assume?”

“…Ah.” She prides herself on the way that smile leaves his face. “Good point.”

The silence is _grating _on her, but Kaori has too much pride to admit that she _wants _conversation from someone who would tease her so easily.

But that doesn’t stop Ash from _trying. _“Why didn’t we just take a cab to the train station?”

Kaori, again, glares at him. She stops, puts her hands in her pockets, and empties them. “Oh, would you see this? I am not made of yen. I cannot afford a cab to go _everywhere._”

…Something in her doesn’t like the look of realization on Ash’s face. It looks _cheeky. _Like he has struck gold.

“If you had spoken to me earlier, I would have offered. I took a cab here from the airport.”

Kaori _blanches. _“You _what?”_

“When I landed,” he clarifies as if he _needs _to rub it in. “I took a cab.”

“From _Tokyo._”

He folds his arms. “From Tokyo.”

Kaori’s left eye twitches. _So, you are telling me I wasted my own money on train tickets for us both… when he has the expendable change to spend on **cabs from Tokyo to Izumo.**_

“Oh, you are a _bastard!” _She cries out, marching on ahead and _ignoring _the way he laughs at her.

The absolute _fucker. _Of _course _Eiji fell in love with him.

They’re _perfect _for each other.

* * *

“We will be on this train for twelve hours, an overnight one.”

“Right.”

“Then when we get to the station, we will need to get another train in an hour to get closer to the neighborhood where Eiji is currently living.”

“Got it.”

“It will be around forty minutes to walk there.”

“Cool.”

Kaori scowls at Ash’s lack of interest in the conversation, dropping her satchel onto the shelf and fixing up her phone to charge. She scrolls through her many, _many _alarms, and sets up three (she can’t be too careful), before kicking off her shoes and socks and sitting on the bed.

She can’t _entirely _blame him for his disinterest—with the dark marks underneath his eyes, he looks ready to sleep standing up.

“You should get some rest,” Kaori says, gently. “You look exhausted.”

“I’m fine,” he clips back, though the half-lidded expression he wears begs to differ. “Couldn’t sleep now even if I wanted to.”

_Americans are so dramatic. I wonder if Eiji caught your odd illness for theatrics. _Kaori zips off her jacket and pulls back her covers. “Suit yourself,” she grumbles, lying down and facing the wall. “Do not wake me, okay? Unlike some, _I _need to be well-rested. You would be useless in Tokyo without someone who can translate your weird English.”

“Considering a career in being a tour guide?” Ash teases, taking a seat on his own bed.

“I would not have the patience. You are an exception.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I feel sorry for lost puppies.”

Hearing his offended choking is sweet, sweet music to drift off to. Kaori smiles to herself, settles happily into the scratchy quilts, and closes her eyes.

* * *

(Sometimes, Eiji has nightmares. With their rooms adjoining, Kaori knew more about what ghosts haunt her brother’s mind than others would.

There are never specific scenarios, of course. Eiji never screams details, never cries out a name that makes the entire house shake. Even when he is half-conscious and barely breathing, Eiji is nothing but reckless in love, bottling it up so that the worries do not extend past his own foghorn mind. But Kaori never sleeps either, not when she has the time for it, and so she hears warning signs.

A small whimper. Restless fidgeting. Short gasps. Sometimes, there’s a name.

Eiji never whispers Ash, or Aslan, or whatever other names. Usually, it’s just one name, and it is one that breaks Eiji more than Ash’s name could ever.

_“Shorter—”_

It’s always cut off in a silent gasp. That’s when he wakes up.

Kaori has it down to a routine, now. The last time she tried to comfort Eiji, he brushed her off, so now she simply listens. Eiji will slow his breathing down to near-silence and sit up, but he’ll do it slowly. He may sit and stare at photographs, maybe stare out the window (she must guess this bit; there are liberties, she never claimed to be perfect) before getting up and going to the kitchen to down a shot of whiskey.

Then, when he goes back to bed, she’ll fall asleep and pretend she never hears her brother in pain.

Once, she got too worried and ambushes him in the kitchen.

“Who’s Shorter?” She asks.

Eiji stares at her with hollow eyes. He looks like he’s half-drowned in whiskey, knocking back the rest in his glass. "A domino effect. He rasps. “He was a domino effect.”

Then he leaves her to be with a simple pat on her shoulder, and Kaori is left even more confused. She stands there in the kitchen, lights flickering from the rain storming on outside, the koi fish in the neighbor’s pond bubbling on the surface.

Even when he left for Tokyo, the nightmares will plague Eiji. She knows this. She is aware of this. Graveyards aren’t beacons for the dead, and ghosts can pass through any border.)

* * *

It’s not sunlight that first draws Kaori from her sleep. It’s like someone is clapping in front of a lamp with how infrequent the moonlight is on her face, enough that Kaori sits up with choppy hair gone askew (she never asked Eiji to fix it and he never offered, so that was that and life moves on) and flicks on her bedside lamp, squinting at the sudden intensity.

“_Mmff…” _She groans, rubbing her eyes and feeling around for her phone. “_…’s time is it…_”

“You’re awake?”

Kaori blinks slowly, before looking to her left. Ash, with those jade eyes still popping against even moonlight, stares back at her. He’s taken off his jacket and shoes, though the scarf is still around his neck, and seems to be writing something down in a travel journal.

“Mm-hm.” She wipes the drool from her mouth and the sleep from her eye, little care into how rumpled she must appear. “You did not sleep.”

Ash shrugs off her comment. “Told you I wouldn’t.”

“Fair enough,” Kaori copies Ash’s phrase from before, drawing her legs out of the blanket and putting her feet on the floor. “What are you writing?”

Ash doesn’t lift his eyes from his notebook. “Nothing important. Just trying to pen down a thought.” When he notices Kaori scrunching her nose, he chuckles. “I’m just trying to write down what I’m thinking, but I can’t motivate myself to.” He scratches behind his ear with his pen. “Eiji makes it sound so easy.”

“Is it for Eiji?”

Ash’s ears turn an odd shade of pink. “Of sorts.”

_Ah. A love letter for Eiji. _Kaori suspected as much. She decides, for now, to spare him further embarrassment, letting the subject drop. “You are concentrating too hard on it.” Kaori pokes her painted toes against his leg, nudging him for attention. “Take a moment away from it.”

Ash eyes her with amusement, but he still does as she suggests and puts the notebook down. “Okay, I’m taking a moment.” He rests his arm on the sill of the window. “Now what?”

The cards are fanned out between her fingers before Ash can even think of anything else. “Do you know how to play sevens?” She says, a glint in her eye as she shuffles them with little effort. “I happen to know the game very well.”

Ash puts his hands together and raises an eyebrow. “Hm. Interesting.” He gestures to the floor. “I accept your little game.”

* * *

“And I believe _this _game is mine as well.”

_“No.” _Ash gawks, looking over the cards again before glaring. “There’s no way you won _three _times in a row. You must have… I don’t know, messed with it or something. I can’t have lost _three times._”

“Are you saying your observational skills are lacking, Ash?” Kaori gathers up the cards and reshuffles them, not resisting a toothy grin. “Surely you do not think of yourself as that incompetent.”

“Appears I’m a genius, not a visionary.” Kaori doesn’t know what to make of that sentence—is it some sort of joke? —as Ash just frowns. “God, if this got back to Alex, I’d be a laughingstock. Ash losing to a _kid _at _sevens._”

“A kid—?!” Kaori swipes her cards away from him. “I am _sixteen!”_

“Your point, kiddo?”

“You are not that much older than me!”

“Ah, but I _am _still an adult.” He pokes her noise; she sees red. “So, listen to your elders.”

Kaori bats his hand away. “You are just like _Eiji! _He says the same thing, all the time, and I hate it! You are just _like _him, all sly and underhanded! Except you are _obvious _about it! You are just _infuriating.” _

When Ash carries on smiling, Kaori just groans into her pillow to resist the urge to _scream._

* * *

The game has long-since ended, but Ash glances at the designs on the back of her deck of cards as if he hasn’t stopped playing. There are only a few pieces of intricate art—some are of foxes, others of raccoons, but there’s one of a koi fish that seems to draw his attention the most.

Sleep hasn’t yet captured Kaori. She lays on her bed, scrolling through her phone (the notifications on her social media has since been put on _sleep mode_), no longer squinting from the light.

“Hey,” she stops scrolling when Ash speaks up, rolling on her side. “You didn’t have to take me along to see Eiji, y’know.”

“I know.”

“Then… why bother? I’m sure you would have rather spent time with your brother on your own.”

Kaori hums to herself, turning her phone off and resting her head on her arms. “That is true. You are very annoying.” When Ash laughs, Kaori can’t help but grin along with him. It’s… oddly nice, for once, to have someone that appreciates her dry sense of humour. Eiji always had a similar sense of humour—she wonders if this was the draw he had toward America.

The thought of _why _flits across her mind and she clicks her tongue against her teeth. “I did not have to, but I am. Does there need to be a complicated answer?”

Despite himself, Ash’s laugh sounds… painful. “I’m not used to simple ones.”

Outside, moonlight casts shadows that look like claws, encroaching on this small bubble, threatening to pour out all of Ash’s pain. Right now, Kaori wishes she could pull Eiji from Tokyo, so he could embrace this sad boy who raced across the world just to see if he was well. This is not a job for her. Ash is nothing to her.

“Answer me this, before I answer you.” Kaori lifts her chin; Ash looks her in the eye. “You told me you came here to see Eiji, yes? Why did you leave him in the first place, if he means so much to you?”

There’s a story there, in the emotions that flash across his face. A year of strife eclipsed in a moment of his jade eyes, but the way Kaori reads it is like trying to read a book written in Spanish when all you know is French; you understand concepts, maybe even some words, but the meaning is lost and you are no closer than if you were fluent in Japanese. She has the advantage of knowing Ash’s tale, but she is not fluent in his language.

Eiji is.

(That is why she must be on this journey with Ash. Maybe if she comes closer to understanding Ash, she can see just _why _Eiji hurts to be apart from him.)

Ash takes his glasses off, folds them up and lets them hang from his collar. “Eiji doesn’t speak much about America, does he?”

Kaori shakes her head. “I think I know more than most.”

“Such as?”

She thinks it over. “I know he went there to document American street violence with Ibe-san, after his accident left his pole-vaulting career in the dust.” Kaori then adds, quietly, “people he cared about got hurt, I think. He is a reckless fool when it comes to giving love to others. He cannot go to a new place without more people thinking he is a treasure.”

“You can say that again, _fuck._” Ash massages his temples, his shoulders hunching up. “We all loved him.”

Kaori’s hands clasp around her phone. “A lot of people he cared for got hurt?”

Ash turns his head away. “…Yeah.”

“I have heard him say names before. In his sleep.” Ash’s shoulders tense. “But there is one name that comes up, over and over. It breaks his heart more than when he mentions you.”

All air leaves Ash’s throat. “Shorter?”

“Shorter. He calls it a domino effect That is all he can ever say about it.”

Once, when the garden was doused in rain, Eiji told her that whatever happened to Shorter, that the event in question broke Ash’s heart more than it ever did to Eiji’s. When she looked at her brother at the time, red-rimmed eyes and knocking back whiskey in a chipped wine glass, she was sure he was simply downplaying his experiences.

Now, _now _she sees the mere mention of the name Shorter, what it does to this man with a weighted broken heart. He already looks smaller. Fragile. Broken.

“Yeah,” he rasps. “Makes sense.”

Kaori decides to drop it. “But he was sad about you, too.”

Ash gives pause. “I-I don’t know how much he’d want me saying to you.”

“Tell me vague details, then. I do not think either of us wish to betray Eiji’s trust.”

Ash laughs. A bitter, _jagged _thing, and it is ugly the way his face distorts. “I’ve already fucked up, then.” Shaking his head, he swallows the rest down. “A lot of… what happened to Eiji was my fault. He’d say otherwise, sentimental idiot, but it was. I’m sorry that you saw him so sad for so long. If you need someone to blame, I—”

“I am not looking for that. Just tell me _why _you left my brother.”

Ash looks shocked at her interruption; she has little patience for self-deprecation. Her brother is an idiot in matters concerning love, but not without merit in _who _he chooses to love.

The foolish man clears his throat. “A lot of… bad stuff happened. I know that’s pretty vague on details, but you must know that Eiji got hurt when he was in America?” Kaori nods—the single, circular scar on his abdomen was clumsily covered up, and Eiji has never been a good liar. Ash grimaces, lips thinning into a pursed line. “He got hurt trying to help _me_, so I had to take care of things. I couldn’t go back to him. Not like how I was before.” Ash’s voice goes so quiet, it’s like someone is blowing out a candle. “I couldn’t see him before I was ready. I needed to… to fix myself before I even came close to seeing him again.”

The deck of cards remains scattered all over the floor. An up-turned ace-of-hearts, the back showing the red koi fish, rests on her painted toes. It falls when Kaori uses that same foot to nudge Ash’s leg, poking him three times before he’s out of his foolish, depressive, self-depreciative state. He blinks up at her, brows furrowed, curiousity clouding his eyes.

She holds up a finger and then unbuckles her satchel, rummaging through the front pocket until she finds what she’s looking for; handing it to Ash, she can practically _hear _his airwaves stop functioning with a choked, disbelieving gasp.

“That was taken four months ago, when we all went up to visit Eiji in Tokyo.”

She sees the way Ash’s finger trembles as it traces over the photograph. It’s a simple shot; Eiji’s waving at her camera as he sits on a cheap metal chair outside a coffee shop. His beanie barely covers his long hair, his eyes brighter than they’d been in months. Ash looks at it like he’s cradling sunlight.

“I promise you,” Kaori doesn’t miss the glassy look in his eyes, “he knew how to be happy, too.”

“His hair is longer in this.” Ash’s voice shakes, and his lips split into a delighted, delirious smile. “Is it still this long?”

Kaori grins right back at him. “Longer. Down to his shoulders. He _braids _it now.”

_“Braids,_” Ash breathes, leaning back against the wall. “He _braids _his hair.”

_Oh, yes, _Kaori thinks to herself, watching that dazed smile blossom like cherry blossoms, _this, this right here is a man in love. _

Suddenly Ash shoots back up, and the dazed smile on his face is replaced with a growing flush. “Ah, shit. Sorry, you probably want this back.” He leans over to return it, but Kaori pushes it away and back towards him.

“Silly man,” she teases. “You do not _return _a _gift._”

“Oh.” With that, the dazed smile is back. Ash leans against his pillow and holds the photograph up towards the dim light, still tracing over Eiji’s smile. “Thank you.”

“It is only fair,” Kaori copies his gesture, leaning against her own pillow. “Eiji carries around a picture of you sitting against a window in New York. Now, you have one of your own.”

There’s a stuttered gasp coming from Ash again, but Kaori closes her eyes, leaving him to his own moment. When she falls asleep, this time, she’s smiling—not from the triumph over making him flustered, but simple happiness that somewhere, even in the hell Eiji went through in America, someone loved him _this much_.

Like the ruined photographs that Eiji shreds when they don’t turn out right, Kaori’s sleep seems to be coming to her in mere snippets. As her eyes flit open again, she reaches for her phone and quietly _groans _at the little amount of sleep she’s _actually_ gotten, before sitting up in bed.

The train quietly rumbles; it had become hypnotic until she woke up, and now it’s just annoying. She runs her hand through her choppy hair and stands up, making her way to the small bathroom. Kaori tries to ignore how _awful _her face looks, all tight and exhausted, splashing water on her face and washing under her eyes.

“Eiji’s the same, you know.” Kaori almost _leaps _out of her skin when she sees Ash, leaning against the bathroom door.

“Do not do that!” She protests, snatching the hand towel he’s holding out for her and drying her face. “It is rude to scare someone.” _Especially the person who paid for these tickets whilst you had such money endlessly spilling from your pockets._

Perhaps she is still bitter over that.

“Sorry,” he grins, obviously not meaning it. “Eiji is the same, though.”

Kaori glares at him from behind the towel, before hanging it back up. “The same how, exactly?”

“When Eiji first moved into our apartment, he was the same.” The same fond look in his eyes returns, clouding up any acknowledgment that she’s even really there. It gives Kaori pause before she softens her glare. “Up and down all through the night. At first, I thought he was nervous being along with me, but he just couldn’t sleep in a new place easily.”

To her surprise, he grins at her. “Looks like it runs in the family.”

Curse it all, her cheeks turn _pink. _“Yes, well.” She folds her arms and grabs a nearby hairbrush. Kaori is not about to give him the satisfaction of _flustering _her. “It is an Okumura trait, to… to take time to settle in new places. I—” She sighs at the sight of the random strands sticking up. “Dammit.”

“Something wrong?”

Kaori peers in closer to the mirror and groans. “It is still uneven.”

Ash looks at the back of her head. “Looks like you had a pretty bad cut.”

Guilt washes over her; Eiji collapsing in her arms as they both fall to the floor, her struggling to keep them both afloat as he drowns in old memories. _You were a dead love to him, then. The mere mention of your name had his knees buckling from grief. And now here you stand, and I am bringing you home._

“I did try to fix it.” Kaori shrugs, running a hand through her hair again. “Kaa-san hasn’t noticed, so I have not asked for money to go to a salon.”

“Want me to?”

Kaori turns her head to him, eyes wide. “Excuse me?”

“Your hair,” he says, gesturing to a pair of scissors resting by the sink. “I used to fix Eiji’s, sometimes. When it got too long. Could probably even it out a bit better for you.” Ash glances at her, a little nervous. “If you want me to, that is.”

Thunder cracks through her head; an electric realization. Kaori’s breathing shallows, as the unraveling of something manifests in her mind. _Ash used to fix Eiji’s hair when it got too long, and now it is so long Eiji must braid it to regain functionality._

Oh, _Eiji._

_You really do love him. This Aslan._

Ash seems to take her silence as a negative, backtracking and apologising. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have offered, that was probably too awkward—”

“Do not speak too fast, it is hard to understand.” Kaori grabs the scissors and presses them against his arm. “Also, do not speak for me. You Americans are so _impatient._” Despite her criticisms _sounding_ harsh, Kaori cannot help a smile; one that Ash returns.

“Says the demanding Japanese.” His finger moves in a circle, indicating for her to turn around. Kaori complies; he grabs the hand-towel and puts it around her shoulders, combing her hair back. “You want it just evened out? I can’t do much more than that unless you want a mohawk.”

Kaori scrunches up her nose. “_Mohawk_?”

“Yeah. Like, uh…” He gestures to the sides of his head. “Shaved at the sides, but a part in the middle sticks up. You heard of that haircut?”

“Oh, a Mohican?” She cannot help but smile when he nods. “Yes, I know the ones! They are very cool-looking. I do not want one, though. They are too much to maintain.”

Ash begins brushing out her hair and tilting her head to the side. “Mm, I know. Had a friend who had one.” He drags the comb through, before starting to snip at the ends. “Dyed it purple, too. Always getting damaged ends, then complaining to me about it.” Ash shakes his head; there’s a fondness in his eyes now, too. “Damned bastard, he should’ve stayed bald.”

“_Purple?” _Kaori tries to picture it, when something clicks. “Oh.”

“You okay?”

“Yes, I just…” Kaori thinks back to the photographs of that one night when she peeked in Eiji’s room and saw him staring dead silent and ahead, surrounded by pictures of Ash. But there was one—a reel, maybe?—and it showed three people. Ash, Eiji, and…

_Oh._

A man with a purple mohawk. There was only one name that made Eiji hurt as much as Ash’s; there must only be one other name that makes Ash’s eyes cloud with fondness like Eiji’s.

_Shorter Wong._

“It is nothing. I just lost my direction of thought for a moment.”

The snipping carries on; Ash eyeing her oddly as he does so. He dusts off the towel a few times, strands of brown hair fall to the floor.

Kaori wonders, in the back of her mind, if Ash is trying to remember what it was like to cut Eiji’s hair. If this is the closest he can get for the moment, Kaori being his little sister, and is trying to relive those moments of affection he adored so much.

Ash leans her head forward and measures out the next parts to cut. “Did Eiji do this for you?” She asks, despite herself.

Ash pauses. “Yeah, he would.” He carries on, eyes focused on her hair. “He’d help me shave, too. Sometimes. When I got too lazy.”

There’s a little glint in his eyes like he’s testing her for something. She narrows her own as she looks at him in the mirror. _What is he trying to say? Do I not approve because you are both men? Is that what you are trying to convey?_

Instead, Kaori says, “blond beards would look very stupid, especially on you. I am glad Eiji was there.” The smirk on her face only increases when he splutters in disbelief. “That stubble on your chin is not very attractive, you know.”

There’s a twitch in his eye as he cuts her hair. “Didn’t stop a million people fawning over me when I came to Japan. Y’know how many times I’ve been called _handsome American _in one day? Didn’t take the Japanese for such perverts.”

“They have no taste.”

“Oh, and _you _do?”

Kaori closes her eyes. “Much better taste than they do, evidently.” She opens one eye, and positively _gleams _whilst she grins at him. “And, apparently, I am _very much_ like Eiji, yes? I wonder how _he _would react to seeing you with stubble.”

Ash’s eyes are hidden by his bangs, making one last dramatic chop off her hair before slamming the scissors down, marching over to his rucksack and grabbing his washbag.

“Move a second,” he demands, “I need to fucking shave.”

Kaori goes back into their shared room, unable to stop the laughter spilling from her throat.

* * *

(“Do you miss him?”

“Everyday. My soul is always with him.”)

* * *

Being woken up by having a piece of plastic-wrapped bread _shoved into your face, _Kaori has to admit, _is not up there in ways she would like to be woken up. _She looks past the hand that throws the bread her way, her hair sticking up as she sets to glare _daggers _to the person who did this to her, and—

Oh, of _course _Ash has to ruin her good opinion of him. He’s standing there, grinning like a fool, and Kaori wants to _murder _him.

“What.”

“I got us breakfast.” He says, like it’s a thing to be proud of. The smug grin doesn’t leave even after he snaps the ring pull off a can of lemonade (do Americans drink this in the morning? Or is Ash just a special _brand _of oddity?) “I guess my Japanese isn’t _so _shoddy after all, huh?”

Kaori sits up, her hair defying gravity, and peers groggily down at the bread in question. “…You chose _this _for breakfast.”

Ash stops drinking. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Pumpkin bread.” Kaori frowns at him, eyes still heavy. “You got us _pumpkin bread.”_

Ash crushes the can in his hand so fast, lemonade spills out of _tears in the metal. _“Eiji, you _little bastard.”_ He hisses, eye twitching.

Kaori claps her hands together in a faux prayer. “May Kami-sama save you from Eiji’s underhanded fuckery.”

* * *

The number of notifications on her phone continues to rise. Kaori, like the mature adult she is, ignores them to go and indulge in overpriced coffee.

The train stopped not-too-long ago, and not satisfied with Ash’s idea of ‘_breakfast’_, has dragged him into an overly expensive coffee shop nestled in the heart of the train station. The food isn’t worth the price at _all, _so that’s why after the train tickets, she insists he pays. Since he is paying, Kaori feels absolutely no remorse ordering the most expensive coffee and bagel on the menu.

“You’re a spoiled brat,” Ash grumbles, taking a seat in front of her and rolling his money back into his wallet. “Just like Eiji.”

Kaori grins as she takes a sip of her mocha, a sweet little shrug answering his gripes. “Perhaps _you _should have practiced your Japanese better. Then you would not have spent so much on pre-packaged pumpkin bread.”

Ash grumbles into his coffee again, and Kaori swears she can _almost _see a pout on his mouth.

“Still,” she sets her cup down and grabs her satchel bag, fiddling with her camera. “You are right about Eiji. He is a very underhanded, spoiled man. I am going to assume he gripes as much as I do with your American nature, but he is _just _as bad regarding that.”

“Oh?” Ash looks like he’s struck _gold. _“Care to share?”

Now, Kaori’s mind may have ignored all her teacher’s lessons and cramming for the past year, but it is a photographic _treasure trove _of Embarrassing Eiji Stories. And seeing her brother’s… well, she’ll assume _boyfriend _for now, but seeing Ash grin at her like this, _now _is the time to reap the rewards of that.

“He once forgot that it is rude to speak loudly on the phone on Japanese trains, then got so embarrassed he apologised loudly in English and ran straight into the train doors and almost fainted.”

Forget bursting, Ash _explodes _into laughter.

* * *

She remembers, somewhere in that conversation, that she is supposed to love her brother. The topic drifts to Eiji’s old sporting career.

“He was _not _supposed to pole-vault again. Why would he even do that?” Kaori raises an eyebrow. “Do not tell me he was trying to do it to impress you. There are other things he could have done.”

“I—no.” Shame creeps up on Ash for some reason. “We didn’t really have a choice—wait.” He pauses. “What do you mean, _other things he could have done?_”

Oh, this is golden. This is _too good._

Kaori closes her eyes and takes a sip of her coffee. “He missed the athleticism of pole-vaulting, and he wanted to keep practicing his upper-body strength for as long as he could.” She hides her smile behind her cup, and waits for his reaction when she spills, “so, he began attending pole-dancing classes.”

Ash promptly chokes on his coffee.

* * *

It doesn’t take Kaori too long to realise that Ash doesn’t like large crowds of people.

There are no overt signs, at first. He’s friendly with her (despite the initial friction), and anytime Kaori mentions Eiji, it’s like sunlight has graced his life for the first time. Ash can smooth-talk the coffee shop barista with his clumsy Japanese (and, if she’s being honest, it isn’t _that_ bad. She’s not about to stroke his ego and tell him that, though) to keep the price down, so she doesn’t notice at first.

Yet when they both pile into the next train, it’s like a hawk has replaced the puppy of a man she first met. His eyes are trained _everywhere, _checking pockets and nooks and crannies. There is no trust for him for anyone on this train, save maybe her, and by the way his teeth grit together it is like he is more used to caution than safety.

(This is all lining up the theories in her mind, but she keeps quiet, for now. She wouldn’t have noticed his obsessive hawk eyes if she herself wasn’t always watching him.)

He only seems to be at ease when she suggests they move to a quieter part of the carriage. The hawk eyes are still there, darting around whenever people’s attentions are elsewhere, but the tension in his shoulders lessens.

Ash leans closer to her to whisper. “How much time until we get there?”

Kaori glances around; this level of speaking seems okay for this train carriage. She checks her phone, at the tracker on her journey. “Around thirty minutes. Then we will be walking for a bit.”

“You need me to carry your case?”

Kaori’s lip juts out. “It’s a little late to play the role of _gentleman, _Ash.” From pout to smirk, she can’t help but layer her voice with a teasing tone. “Or is this just to impress _Eiji?”_

“Shut up,” he bats her shoulder with his hand, but there’s a smile blossoming that he can’t bite back.

Halfway to their destination, the mid-morning lunch rush crowds more people on the train than before, so their quiet little carriage becomes the commuter’s equivalent of a lone food stall to the hungry masses. People trickle in, then the dam bursts and more and more load; parents with children on their hips; business professionals who hush conversations on silver phones. There are two more stops before more people cram in, and there’s a tension to Ash’s shoulders when _the incident _happens.

There’s an older man who uses a cane that boards the train with shaky steps. Ash has already relinquished his seat to a heavily pregnant woman traveling alone and Kaori still browsing on her phone when she sees the man looks around nervously for a free seat. She doesn’t waste time offering it to him, standing up and gesturing. He thanks her under his breath, and Kaori looks around for something to grip onto.

Something starts twisting in her gut when the only bar available in the cramped crowd of commuters is sandwiched between a man and the wall of the train car. Steeling her nerves, Kaori reaches for the bar and faces toward the door, ignoring the thrumming screams her heart gives off; the ringing in her ears.

_It’s fine, _she thinks, gripping the bar tighter. _Everything is fine._

People sway with the movement of the train, mid-morning light gracing Tokyo’s skyscrapers, the windows of the office buildings. Ash seems a _little_ impressed by the scenery, at least—his hawk eyes have flitted to the windows for a time when the birds fly overhead. She has half a mind to snap a picture and send it to Eiji; Ash is not her type, not really, but she recognizes _when _someone could be considered pretty. Eiji likes it when Ash is surrounded by light. It’s a common pattern in his photographs.

Her social media notifications keep climbing. Curiousity is maddening, but her resolve is stronger, so she doesn't look—

Kaori freezes and tastes bile at the back of her throat.

There’s a hand wandering too purposefully low to be _accidental. _

She can feel how clammy her hands are around the bar as the hand _carries on wandering, _frozen as she looks on ahead in fear. Her mother warned her about this. Her father begged her never to take the train alone. Always wear trousers. Never look a man in the eye. Stay close to the doors. Never give up your seat.

How could she have been so _stupid? _Of course, this _had _to be happening to her now, of course, she would have to endure this, she’s _an idiot_—

Before she even has time to do anything, there’s a shrill yelp when the hand is suddenly _ripped _off her and she sees Ash _slamming _the man against the side of the train car. Ash has the man’s arms pinned behind his back and she’s pretty sure she can hear bones cracking.

“What the _hell _you think you’re doing?!” He seethes in clumsy Japanese. “She’s _sixteen. _You’re lucky I don’t rip all your fingers off.” Ash leans closer to the man’s whimpering mouth. “Try that shit on _me _next time. We’ll see who’s the helpless target. Or is it okay because she’s a _kid?_”

Kaori’s too shocked to do anything for a moment. Her eyes dart around, and she sees it. Sees the twists of disapproval, the judgments, the furrowing of brows, and something lodges in her throat. Her cheeks burn, shame falls into her gut like ink into water, spreading until her blood feels like it’s been poisoned—

_Everyone’s eyes are on her._

The next stop comes, and she drags Ash out by his ear.

* * *

“_What _were you thinking, slamming that man against the wall like that?!”

They stop in an alleyway just outside of the train station. Ash doesn’t stumble as Kaori throws her hand off him, but his glasses have slipped down his face. He looks furious, wide-eyed and _murderous. _Kaori’s clenching her fists so hard she’s sure there are angry nail marks engraved in her skin.

Ash doesn’t look apologetic in the least. “What the fuck was I _supposed _to do? Let that guy _grope _you?”

“You were _supposed _to not make such a big scene! Who knows what everyone else was thinking?” Her English becomes stuttered, translations not being kind to her. “I was handling it!”

“Oh, _that _was handling it?” Ash laughs, _laughs, _wipes under his eyes. “Sure, because your face screaming _terror _was handling it.”

Her fists _shake. _“Your first reaction to anything is a violent one, then?” Teeth bared; she goes to verbally strike. “Is my brother going to be truly safe with you if _this _is your reaction to any ill? Throwing a man against a train car and threatening bodily harm?”

Ash flinches. _Flinches. _It’s almost enough to soften Kaori.

But, ultimately, it doesn’t. The words tumble out before she can stop them. “I know Eiji went to America to document street gangs. I understand you had some affiliation with that. I did not know you would be _bringing _the danger of that violence to my _country._”

“Kaori—”

“This is not America, Aslan!” She carries on, and she’s sure she can feel liquid seeping underneath her nails. “You cannot just be violent to anyone! You cannot make dramatic scenes like that. That is for movies, not for real life! I—I was handling it! I was—” A furious, shameful flush goes to her ears as she hiccups. “It was not for you to interfere! I could have _coped_!”

Deep, _deep _shame swirls in her stomach when Kaori finally notices the fat tears sliding down her face, sees the blood seeping from the nail marks in her palm. She shudders as she tries to breathe, hangs her head so Ash doesn’t see her like this, the counting isn’t _working. _She’s not panicking, but there’s something thick in her throat and she _hates it._

She hates _everything._

“Hey,” Ash walks up to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Come here.”

At this point, she’s too weak. She flops her head on Ash’s shoulder, and he pats her head like she was a small child. He doesn’t offer her comfort the way Eiji would; with tender words and soft kisses to her hair; Ash shushes her softly. Pats her head a little. It’s enough.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I shouldn’t have reacted so badly before.” She shakes her head but says nothing. “But I can’t apologise for laying into that guy.”

Her arms fall to her sides.

“This isn’t the first time it’s happened, is it?”

Shame pools in her gut again. “No.” She mumbles. “It is common.”

“Yeah, thought so.” He pulls back from her a bit so she can see his face. “Kaori, I need you to remember something for me. And I want you to promise me that you’ll believe it.”

“Wh-what?”

“_He _was the violent one the second he decided to assault you.”

Kaori furrows her brow. Is this a translation error? “He was not violent—”

“Kaori.” Ash cuts her off. “Making excuses for _anyone _who does that shit to you is how you make healing from stuff like that harder. He was violent the second he touched you. I know it’s easier to blame yourself—if you hadn’t stood there, or if you’d only been more careful—but that is _their _voice, and the sooner you deprogram yourself from that, I _promise, _you’ll feel less shame.”

The words flow through her head like water. Maybe America defines violence differently. She always likened it to big, dramatic acts of punching and kicking or loud noises and screaming. But Ash says that this small act, the one that made her freeze; that it was also violence. Slow violence, quiet violence.

_Deprogram and shame. _He speaks like… Kaori’s eyes widen. She looks at Ash in horror. “H-Have… _you…?_”

There’s a flash of pain again. He pats her on the head and lets her head rest on his shoulder. At this point, Kaori knows that Ash doesn’t need to answer.

“Kaori.”

“Yeah?”

“Does Eiji know?”

She freezes. “…I didn’t want to bother him.”

He pats her back. “You already know a lot of his problems, right? I think he’d want to know.” Ash unzips his coat and wraps it around her shoulders. “Trust me, if you thought _I _was bad, I’ve seen Eiji talk about you. He’ll _ruin _the next bastard who hurts you.”

* * *

The thing about events like these is it doesn’t _really _sink in until later. Kaori is still feeling numb, and she knows when she goes home tomorrow she won’t want to get out of bed for at least three days, maybe listen to some depressive music whilst binging on ice cream. These things don’t happen to her often, but it’s enough to leave her feeling gross for days when it _does. _

Ash hasn’t lifted his hand from her shoulder, guiding her through the streets of Tokyo with minimal assistance. Something about the open, fresh air seems to work for her, he seems to have picked up on that, and they got off a station too early. They walk in silence, with small quips about direction, sometimes about translating a street sign. He doesn’t pry, she doesn’t unload, and it seems to be working for them. A nice rhythm in the heart of Tokyo.

Shame isn’t pooling in her gut anymore. It’s still there on the fringes of her mind, but she took Ash’s words to heart. They aren’t going to fix everything, but it’s a start, and if Eiji got some use out of counseling then maybe she can bring up the points of deprogramming her own approach to this stuff.

Instead, what’s on her mind is _guilt. _

“Aslan?”

She feels his jade eyes on her. “Yeah?”

“I need to apologise to you.”

He raises a brow at her. “I already told you, you don’t need to. You were angry and scared earlier, there’s nothing to—”

Kaori raises a hand. “Stop. I want to sit, then I will explain.”

So, they do. There’s a bit of wall not connected with any housing, near a restaurant with a large koi pond in the corner. Kaori isn’t sure if the sheen from those koi fish means they are the most beautiful she has ever seen, or if the owner has faked the authenticity of the koi, but it’s a nice view, nonetheless.

Kaori is dwarfed by Ash’s coat, feeling more like a child than ever. Ash sits next to her, taking his hands away from her shoulders as she fiddles with her hands.

“Eiji has no exams.”

_That _draws Ash’s attention. “But you said—”

“I did. I lied to you.” Kaori hugs her knees. “You were evading truths. I respected that it was something you didn’t want to talk about. But I was not sure I could trust you.” She runs a hand through her choppy hair. “Ash, my brother was unlike himself for months when he returned home. He wouldn’t touch his camera. Would only eat takeout. He would cry Shorter’s name and knock back a glass of whiskey to cope with the pain.”

The crestfallen expression he had worn back at her family home is back, but it is _laced _with guilt. She hadn’t known what to do then. Now, she hates herself for bringing it up.

“And then, my brother got better over time, I could see that he was starting to heal. I was so happy for him, yes?” She can’t _look _at that sadness from Ash anymore. She turns away, chin tucked into her knees. “He moved to Tokyo to carry on with University, and five months later a ghost from America is knocking on our door. Our parents were not home - as if they care about what was going on with Eiji enough to get involved as I did, and I knew more than most, so…”

Ash finishes her sentence. “You were seeing if I was good enough for him.”

Kaori shakes her head. “No, that’s not it. I was seeing if you were everything Eiji said with his eyes whenever he mentioned your name. I did not want to see the bad in you.”

Ash’s breathing stutters. “Oh.”

“If you were going to bring him pain, I would have left you in Tokyo without a second thought. Eiji may have hated me, but I can live with that if it means he isn’t hurting.”

“…I understand.”

(The memory echoes in Kaori’s head, like her skull is a bell and her words the stick beating her. _“Did this Ash truly break your heart so much that he made you younger?!”_

She thought she knew what she was talking about. How she was wrong.

Oh, _Eiji. _Oh, _Ash._)

“_But_,” she begins again, and Ash lets go of the guilt to look at her. Kaori tries a smile. Her eyes feel heavy and tired, her heart has swelled with fear, but she is going to _try. _“I also wanted to see what kind of person my brother could love so much.” Ash’s eyes gloss over. “I can see it, now. Maybe not all of it, I do not know you, but I can see why Eiji does so much. I can see why he would mourn someone like you for so long. Why he was so determined to believe he would see you again. You seem like a man, very much in love with Eiji, and that love you hold is selfless. I can see why you and Eiji were so drawn to each other.”

Her smile widens, genuinely. “He once said to me, _‘my soul is always with him._’”

Ash gapes. “He… he wrote that in a letter to me.”

“Eiji is a foolish person. Once he loves, he loves recklessly.” Kaori reaches over and touches Ash’s hand. He doesn’t flinch or move away, and she pats his hand. “I want to give you something.”

Ash watches her, curious, as she opens up her satchel bag and pulls out a photo album, holding it out to him. Unable to resist, he begins flipping through, eyes widening at the sight. “This is Izumo?” He asks, breathless. “And—wait, there’s more pictures of Eiji in here?”

“He told me he wanted to visit Izumo with you one day and felt guilty for leaving for Tokyo without having done so.” Ash stares at her as if she has just handed him weighted gold. “This was the best thing we could think of.”

“You—” He trips over his words. “You both did this for _me?_”

“He loves you.”

“You hadn’t even met me, a-and he thought I was dead! Why would you do this for a dead man who broke your brother’s heart?”

“Ash,” Kaori squeezes his hand. “He _loves _you.”

“He loves me,” Ash mumbles in reply. “He _loves _me.”

“He will forever love you, Aslan.”

Ash’s finger is tracing over another photograph. This time, it’s of Eiji and Kaori, a three-week-old set of photos that they took in a booth, silly and fun and happy. It’s stupid; her makeup was running, Eiji’s hair was messy, and Ash looks at it like he’s found the secret to happiness in ink-stained photo paper.

* * *

“Hm…” Kaori checks her phone again, glancing around the streets. “Yes, we are almost there, I am positive. I recognise this street from when Eiji sent me photographs of his new place.”

Putting her hand on her hip, she nods decisively. “Aslan, we are almost there! I—” Kaori looks to her right but sees no Ash. Look to her left, there is also nobody. She frowns, turning on her heel to try and find him when she sees Ash hovering a few paces back.

_What is he doing? _Kaori thinks as she rushes to catch up to him. He’s lingering at a store, transfixed on something; it is only when she gets nearer does she sees the slight trembles overcoming his entire body. “Aslan?”

He jumps, a little startled. “Oh, sorry. Were you saying something?”

“I was just telling you that we are almost to Eiji’s apartment.” Kaori looks at the shop curiously—it is just a standard florist, close to closing time. She frowns in confusion. “Did you want something in there?”

“No, not really.”

There’s a look of disbelief on Kaori’s face. She says nothing, just folds her arms and raises a brow at Ash. He seems to take notice of that, massaging his temples.

“Eiji wasn’t joking when he called you _hawk eyes._” His hand drags down to his mouth before he lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Alright, fine. I’m just…” Ash groans. “I’m… nervous, I guess. You know your brother; does he even _want _me here anymore? As you said, I broke his heart.”

Kaori’s eye twitches.

_Oh, no. No, you do not get to back out now. Not after I have seen my brother mourn you for almost a year._

“Nope. Nope, nope, _nope._” Kaori marches on to behind him and slaps her hands onto his back. “You are not backing out now, Aslan. You will not be a coward. You are named after a lion, are you not? One that rose—”

“Oh, do _not _compare me to that Jesus lion—”

“—and you will _not _be a coward.”

“Wait, what—” He protests when she starts _shoving _him towards the florist. “Kaori, what the hell?! What are you doing?”

“_Listen _here, Aslan!” She raises a finger at him. Kaori will not tell you if it was the middle one on purpose or not. “My brother has around two-hundred photographs of you, or you and him, or you and his friends, or whatever transpired in New York! He has not cut his hair since you stopped doing it for him! He cares about you very much and I swear to everything, I will not let your stupid doubts come between you and him! You will _not royally fuck this up _now!”

“I—”

“_Quiet!” _Ash’s jaw locks shut as Kaori glowers. “Now, you will go and buy some nice flowers for him like a _good _person, arrive on his doorstep and _beg _his forgiveness.” She pushes him again; he only leans forward. “Go on! I will not move until you get them! Go, go, go!”

This is a man, Eiji has told her in fleeting words, who has faced many bad people. Being involved in gang warfare, she can only imagine the characters he stumbled across in his short life, the scrapes he has had with death. Yet, as Ash looks at the flowers in the shop, analyses their meanings on his phone when he thinks Kaori isn’t looking, he treats this like it is the most dangerous battle he has ever faced.

And, perhaps, it is. Eiji’s heart is not a small thing to trifle with. It is not fleeting, but it has the wings of a sparrow, guarded by a little fox cub with growing fangs. Nobody hurts her brother again. Kaori will never allow it.

Her eyes drift to Ash. _Play your cards right, Aslan, _she thinks, _and I will also extend that to you._

“Excuse me,” Ash says in his clumsy Japanese to the florist, _“I would like to buy this, please.”_

Kaori stands back as the florist grabs a bunch of sunflowers. Ash looks back at her as the cashier bunches them together in a ribbon, an uneasy smile at her. She offers him a thumbs-up; he relaxes, and they are both walking toward Eiji’s apartment.

Ash carries the flowers like they are made of fire; tentatively, yet somehow he belongs in the flames.

“He really likes those flowers,” Kaori says, hands in her pockets. “I think I know why, now.”

Ash hides his growing smile in the collar of his jacket. “Do you, now?”

“Mm.” She stops, pulling out her phone. “I am going to call Eiji, now. To tell him to come out.” She shoots a smirk over at Ash. “This will be the last chance you have to evade me, Aslan. Break his heart after this, and I will end you with my own hands.”

“I _knew _this was just a fucking dramatic shovel talk.” Ash returns her grin. “I give you my full permission to kill me if I fuck this up. Preferably, not a stab wound.”

“Good.”

* * *

(Once, Ash dreamed of Shorter without all the blood and pain.

“Go home, Ash,” he said, looking at Ash from underneath his sunglasses. There’s no bullet wound, and Shorter is breathing even. “It’s time to go home.”

When he woke up, Ash didn’t scream.

He grabbed his phone, and looked up the next plane tickets for Tokyo.)

* * *

Japan is safer than the pocket of America he lived in for a year. Eiji _knows _that. He knows, in theory, that things like gang culture and the influence of those who abused that small sector of the city won’t encroach on him in Tokyo. Not in the same way.

But when his mother called him up in hysterics, saying that gossip is being spread around Izumo that Kaori was _“spirited away by a handsome stranger”, _old flames of paranoia lick at his mind. Eiji has tried calling her, of course, but nothing gets through; she’s either ignoring him on purpose, or her phone has been left at the wayside of some road. He’s _begging _it’s the former; he can take his sister being a stubborn brat over her being in danger.

They’re giving it a few more hours before they call the police. Eiji is going to _kill _Kaori if he sees her again.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair as he thinks of someone—_anyone—_that he hasn’t contacted yet. There must be _someone _that Kaori would trust enough to contact.

Maybe she ran away? She had been under a lot of stress. Eiji could understand that. Maybe she wanted a rebellious getaway to clear her head, or maybe planned a trip out with friends in another city that their mother wouldn’t let her go on.

_But Kaori isn’t that cold, _the traitorous voice in his head whispers. _Kaori wouldn’t do that to anyone._

Sometimes he wished, he _wished _Kaori was just a selfish brat. Not a kind, sassy, stupid girl who loved so much it made her heart stress—

When his phone rings, Eiji _leaps, _and scrambles to answer it. “Y-Yes? Who is it?”

There’s static on the other line before relief _floods _his ears. _“Yo, Eiji.”_

“Kaori!” He slouches, falling onto his couch and sighs. “You’re okay?”

She sounds like she’s chewing gum. “_Yeah? I’m fine. Why do you sound so worried, idiot?”_

“Why do I sound—” He grits his teeth. “Do you have _any _idea how long it’s been since you’ve answered your phone? I’ve had Mom crying down the phone to me, Dad sending me so many messages from the _hospital, _and nobody knew where you were! I contacted all your friends I could think of, saying you’ve been _spirited away _by some _handsome foreigner. _We’ve been calling you all day! Did you not think to answer your phone, selfish little brat?”

There’s a pause for a moment.

_“Feel better?”_

Eiji, despite his anger, laughs. “Much better.”

_“Good. Can you open your door? It’s cold out here.”_

“Wait. _What?” _Eiji sits up and looks out his window and—son of a bitch. Kaori even has the gall to _wave _at him. He regrets nothing as he fixes her a pointed glare and hangs up. “You had _better _have a good reason for this, Kaori.” He scolds as he opens the door. “Mom has been worried sick. Your friends were saying you told them you were escorting someone home?”

Kaori shrugs, blowing a bubble from her gum. “I wasn’t lying to you.”

“You live _thirteen hours _away, Kaori.”

“It was important.”

Eiji _hates _the way he softens to her every time. He takes a step forward and looks her over, before putting a hand on her shoulder. “Did someone need help? A friend of yours? You could have called me if you didn’t want to tell our parents. You didn’t have to do this all by yourself.”

“Don’t be all caring _now._ I know you’re still annoyed.”

Eiji just grinned. “Worth a shot. Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?”

“I did, Eiji. I was helping someone home.” Kaori takes a step back from him and gestures to someone hidden in the corner. Kaori switches to English when she says, “You can come out now, Aslan. I told you he would be home.”

“_Aslan?” _Eiji feels like he’s been shot. “Kaori, what—”

When people describe ghosts in gothic horrors, they’re usually faded, monochrome apparitions that will forever retrace the footsteps of a past life. Their moans are guttural, they linger out of the corner of your eye, and only dwell when the sunlight has been chased away by night. Eiji remembers devouring all the classical British novels he could find when he was in elementary—they weren’t Japanese, but they were new and different and _weird, _he lavished in it all.

It’s strange when he sees a ghost for himself. This one blinds him with golden sunlight, those jade eyes popping.

Eiji stares at Ash. Ash stares at Eiji.

This is the first time since he was shot that he’s seen Ash truly terrified.

“I—I,” Ash stammers, running his trembling fingers through his hair. “I know you-you probably want answers. O-or maybe you don’t want to see me at all.” It’s after a while, Eiji realizes, that Ash is talking to him in _Japanese. _It’s clumsy and just about comprehensible, but he’s near fluent in it. “I just—I wanted to know you were okay. You gave me that ticket, a-and I—a lot of things happened, but I _wanted—_I needed to see if you were doing well, and—”

Ash’s voice gets higher the closer Eiji walks toward him. “And I know I caused you a lot of pain, I—I didn’t know what else to do, I…”

His voice trails off when Eiji brushes the back of his hand against Ash’s cheek. He smooths his fingers, running them underneath those jade eyes, down his nose where those glasses lay askew. Eiji brings up his other hand to brush those fingers against Ash’s forehead, then down to his chin. He can see those hawk-eyes watching him with disbelief, the words he may have said trailing out in a soft gasp.

Eiji stops tracing after a while, and simply holds Ash’s face in his hands. On his toes, Eiji leans towards him and presses his forehead against Ash’s.

“おかえり,” Eiji whispers. He closes his eyes and smiles.

Eiji pretends not to feel the tears slip down from Ash’s face as, in his adorably clumsy Japanese, he whispers back, “ただいま.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, why is Ash being so calm, even boyish: he mentions to Kaori he wanted to fix himself. Our boy went to therapy. He's getting better. Also, he's with his crush/love's little sister. He's fucking nervous, y'all. She's not the easiest brat to get along with. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! One more to go. <3 It has been a pleasure writing this so far! Please leave kudos+comment if you enjoyed it! I am more inspired to write if I get feedback (I do accept concrit). Thank you for reading! <3


	3. plant the apple tree by the koi pond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash finally returns home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sweats* okay so i know it's been like almost a month since the last update but. finals came on, and this chapter is like 18k guys. also HOH BOI ya enby wrote their very first semi-smut scene so HOPE Y'ALL ENJOY THAT. <3 <3 thanks to all of you who liked this story!

“How’s she sleeping?”

“Like a baby.” Eiji sticks his legs under the warmth under his kotatsu; Ash sits opposite, legs crossed and glasses hanging from his shirt collar. His gaze briefly flits over to Kaori, curled up in the corner on his futon and dwarfed in Ash’s coat, before turning back to Ash. “She must have been tired out from the journey.”

“She had a lot on her mind the past two days, I think. Can’t have been easy seeing me at the door when she thought I was some dead guy from her brother’s past.”

Ash rests his chin on his hand; Eiji can see the way those jade eyes are clouding. It’s the start of a growing fondness, and it is for _his _little sister. Eiji isn’t sure the way his heart swells at that is healthy, but it’s warm, like drowning his throat in honey.

They converse in English for now, just to slot back into sentimentality. Eiji sighs, undoing the messy ponytail that he had styled it in (Sundays were _cleaning _days) and running a hand through his hair. He’s not blind to the way Ash’s eyes follow his every move. “I am not sure what prompted her to do _this—_she is not a spontaneous sort.”

“Eh, makes perfect sense to me.” Eiji lifts his gaze as he takes a sip of his tea, waiting for Ash to continue. “You realise the entire reason she decided to take me on this little road trip was to see if I was a good person or not_._”

_"What?”_

Ash laughs, quieter when he sees Kaori stir. "She told me that she would have gladly left me in Tokyo if I had hurt you on purpose. Glad she didn't.”

[くそ.] Eiji curses underneath his breath. “She is far too overprotective sometimes—”

“Oi,” Ash interrupts him, “cut her some slack, alright? She was really worried about you. A good family that cares like that is hard to come by.”

“I-I know, I just—” Taking a breath, Eiji sighs again and composes himself. Of all people, he shouldn’t argue with this to _Ash._ Guilt pools in his gut, but he’s still breathing. “I know, Ash. I am sorry.”

“Think I’m the one who owes you that, Eiji.”

There’s an old saying he learned, back in America. _Get down to brass tacks. _He’s not sure where it came from (though, it isn’t like Japanese is any easier with its fanciful sayings and idioms), but he likes the notion of it. Essentially, it’s stripping something down to its core, exposing the raw vulnerabilities and no longer side-stepping confrontation.

New York was full of people who side-stepped weaknesses; Yut-Lung and his jealousy, Sing and his inferiority-complex, Golzine and his entire fucking existence.

Ash, though. _Aslan Jade Callenreese. _Where to even _begin_ with him? Ash was someone Eiji never thought of as running away from his weaknesses. Sometimes, he’d embrace his worst fears in hope to edge a little closer to freedom. Over, and over, and over. A true, brave lionheart.

Yet, he sent Eiji away from him to Japan without a word, spiriting him away in the name of keeping him safe from harm.

Now, he sits under his kotatsu, feet spread and head on his hand, and the question of _why, why, why? _Plagues the little happiness still causing that swelling in his heart.

Eiji reaches over and covers Ash’s hand with his own. “We cannot keep avoiding the obvious, Aslan.”

Unguarded, Ash’s shoulders tense. “I know,” he murmurs. Ash a man who cannot hide his rawest fears, who fears even touching Eiji, in fear that he shatters like glass at a single fingertip’s kiss. “You deserve all the answers.” Blond hair covers jade eyes, and he’s left with an upturned grimace. “So… ask me whatever you want. I won’t side-step.”

“Yes. Important questions first.” Eiji squares his shoulders up. “Are you alright?”

Those jade eyes pop right back out as Ash flinches and his hair goes disheveled, mouth parted in a little gape. “I—what?”

“You.” Eiji squeezes Ash’s hand gently and points at him with his other hand. “Are you alright? And tell me the truth: you promised you would not side-step.”

“Y-Yeah, I know that,” Ash stammers, blinking a few times until reality returns to him. “I, well. I’m fine. No worse for wear than usual.”

“That is good to hear.” The little smile on his face punctuates it; and honestly, it delights him how Ash trips over conversations when there’s a little dash of _sincerity. _Oh, how he _wishes _he could have been a fly on the wall to Kaori and Ash’s conversation on the overnight train.

Eiji laces their fingers together; slow, soft, letting Ash know he can pull away. He knows Ash cannot return it, not this vulnerable, but he doesn’t pull away. “And everyone back in New York? Are they well?”

Ash swallows, his eyes _trained _on their hands, and manages a stiff nod. “Yeah. They’re all settled.” There’s something giving Ash pause, until he says, “we had a funeral for Shorter.”

_Oh. _

“If—it wasn’t anything too fancy.” Ash ducks his head, bites his lip. “Jeez, you know Shorter wouldn’t have even liked that we spent money on shit like that. '_Give it to Sing, the little runt needs it,’ _he would have said. But Nadia needed it more, y’know? And—” He runs a hand through his hair. “Fucking _Yut-Lung _of all people attends in the shadows. Like he has the right to. And y’know,” a little, bitter laugh follows, “he has more of a right than I did—I’m the one who—well, I just—”

“_Ash_.”

“No, it’s okay. Just give me a second. Trying not to fall back into old habits.” Ash takes a moment, and something _strikes _Eiji. The way Ash counts, the way he steadies his breathing, he _knows _how this works. He keeps it quiet for the moment, waiting for Ash to return to the conversation. “He gave money to Nadia. She’s pregnant. He’s set them up for _life._”

Eiji thinks back to Yut-Lung. Thinks back to those glances, to the interactions with Sing.

“I did not know she had a partner,” he opts for instead.

“Yeah. Charlie.” Eiji’s eyes widen in surprise. “It was obvious, looking back over things. I guess they kept it quiet because, well, of what happened to Shorter. Not like that matters anymore, but the kid’s gonna be away from crime for life.” Ash can’t look at Eiji still, but Eiji can see that little smile on his face. “It’s what Shorter would’ve wanted.”

“Yes,” Eiji agrees. “He would have.”

(And, sometimes, in the dark of night, Eiji thinks of Shorter.

That, somehow, in the hell that was New York, a Chinese-American man with a purple mohawk and eyebrow piercings existed, who covered his eyes with dark shades and stared down the barrel of a gun like it was a game; that, despite all of that, his kindness stretched so far that he saw Ash as a _child_ in prison whereas every other depraved saw him as a proxy for feminine sexuality (he was a child, a fucking _child_); who’s downfall came because he, like Ash, loved those close to him so much that it made other people jealous.

Shorter was a man who, despite all of the chemical-fuck-ups the Banana Fish drug caused his brain, his kindness _still _prevailed in his resistance; Shorter, who became the koi who flew over waterfalls, who in a moment of shallow breathing had begged for it to _end _so he couldn’t hurt anyone, rather than for Ash to _save him _and spend a life on unhinged violence_. _

Sometimes in the night, Eiji thinks of Shorter and asks, _with more time together, could I have loved you the way I love Ash? _Perhaps he and Ash both fell in love with the potential of loving Shorter, and both of their souls agonize over the _what-ifs. _

Ash’s thumb stroking over his palm brings Eiji back. _Me too, _he imagines Ash thinking as he meets his eyes. _Me, too._)

“I was told you had died twelve hours back into landing in Japan, two minutes away from walking to my house in Izumo.” Eiji murmurs, gripping Ash’s hand a little tighter. “Ibe-san had called me and said you had died. That it was a fatal stabbing to the abdomen. He told me—"

His lips purse until they turn chalky-white, and the name feels like acid on his tongue, “he said that Lao had stabbed you.”

Ash is quiet for too long; the silence speaks yes, but his words next speak louder. “He thought I was still going to attack Sing.” Those beautiful, beautiful jade eyes seem to lose their luster. Kaori still slumbers on, curled up in Ash’s jacket, but the world is caught in an eclipse of time, and neither Eiji nor Ash can ignore this. “I shot him.”

“I know.” Eiji reaches over, cups Ash’s chin so he looks Eiji in the eye, and almost backpedals when he sees how _red _they’re becoming. But Eiji needs to know. He _needs _the answer. “But there is no way he would have been able to land a _stabbing _on you, Ash. I know you.” He frowns, pursing his lips. “How did he manage it?”

Ash’s breathing shallows. “You’re not going to like the answer.”

“As opposed to you being _dead?_”

“Some things are better left buried.”

“This is not one of those things.” Eiji lets go of Ash’s hand and puts both on his cheeks instead. “I need to know. _Please, _Ash. Do not leave my own head to fill in the gaps. I—” Eiji bites his lip, eyes stinging. “Do not make me imagine something worse again. I need the truth.”

Ash regards him for a moment, looking crestfallen. Eiji wonders; how else can the world punish this soul? _He never deserved it, _Eiji thinks furiously, knowing the angry tears poking at his eyes aren’t just for lack of answers.

Eiji imagines a sunlit garden, lined with all the deities of the world, and he's at the center stage. There Eiji would stand before them and with clenched fists, he would seethe, _Ash never deserved it, and you dared to try and take him away from me. _

Then, Eiji feels Ash’s hands slowly come up and take Eiji’s away from his face, only to slowly intertwine with his. Fingertips kiss palms, jagged nails slowly trace over love-lines. Ash explores Eiji’s hands for a while, smoothing over the skin and softly pinching the callouses.

“You’re not going to like it,” Ash warns.

“Please,” Eiji begs, and then there’s no going back for either

Ash steals a breath. “I was ready to let you go. Back to Japan. Back to the people who loved you, where you could love safely. I was ready. Or—” Ash, Aslan, _his lionheart _laughs a somber thing, a pathetic mewl, and it breaks Eiji’s heart. “Or at least, I thought I was. I was so _sure _it was what I wanted for you.”

Eiji doesn’t let go of their hands, but he stands so he can get up from the other side of the kotatsu and move so he’s sat down next to Ash. Their hands hold each other tighter. _Don’t let go. _

“It was snowing in New York.” Ash leans his head on Eiji’s shoulder. “It was snowing, and I got your letter. And then, all I wanted to do was see you. Nothing else mattered.”

Ash was wrong about Eiji not liking it.

He _hates _this.

It feels worse than getting shot. It feels worse than seeing Ash in so much pain, shaking and trembling in his arms.

He watches those beautiful jade eyes turn downcast, hesitant; clouding like snow clouds atop that mountain where Ash may have dragged himself to die. Ash is no leopard, but he’s been fashioned into a lion in a cage, claws sharpened against blades that tried to sever his ties to this world.

Eiji hesitates, for the first time in his life, to tell Ash how he really feels.

Very carefully, he turns Ash’s head toward him. Gently, without any force; but it’s there all the same.

“Okay.”

Ash’s eyes widen. “_Okay_?”

“Okay,” Eiji repeats. “That is all I need to hear. You are with me now, you are safe, you are well. That is all that matters to me.”

“I—” Maybe there’s something in the way Eiji says it, but Ash takes the sentiment at face value. “You’re sure you don’t need to know more about it?”

_I already know what you are going to say. _Eiji shakes his head, offers a smile to placate him. “I did not want to imagine worse. You told me what I needed to hear. Now, we can move forward.” Eiji puts his hand over Ash’s. “If that is okay with you, yes?”

“Yeah,” Ash breathes, and suddenly the world shifts. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

_Stay with me. Please do not leave._

Eiji says nothing, but holds Ash as the splintering in his heart begins to take root.

* * *

(Once, out of countless times, Ash dreams of Shorter. He’s there without the blood, without the gasped pleas begging for death. Yet here, Shorter’s glasses are broken, the plastic pieces shattered at his feet. They both sit there together in the familiar prison courtyard underneath the tree in late Autumn, chain link fences blurring out into an endless abyss of white, sunlight bleeding into nothingness.

“When are you going to stop running away from this, Ash?” Shorter says as the bullet hole starts closing. Yet, it can’t quite complete itself. “Don’t you know he’s waiting for you to come home?”

“I can’t.” Suddenly, Ash is fourteen again. A scared, stupid kid who nobody gave a damn about, a little rabbit thrown prey to a pack of hungry wolves—and somehow, he found Shorter, a ram with horns and a louder cry. He’s an ungrateful shit, the way he shies away from giving Shorter’s phantasm the proper answer he deserves. “I_ can’t._”

“Huh. That’s surprising.” Ash can hear the smirk in Shorter’s voice, the leaves from the tree slowly sauntering and landing at their feet. They all turn to dust the moment it touches their shoes. “Never took you for running _scared_, Callenreese.”

“Guess I took after you there, Wong.”

Shorter’s arm is firmly around his shoulders, and Ash feels older, his back aches with bones that have been snapped far too often for his young body. The tighter Shorter holds onto him, the more Ash’s heart breaks, splintering until he can feel shards of his heart thrumming in his bloodstream.

The bullet hole hasn’t faded. Hasn’t fully closed. It twins with his stab wound, and both have scars that never fully healed.

“Let yourself love, Ash,” Shorter murmurs, holding him tighter the world starting to fade around them. Shorter kisses his cheek and whispers as the world folds into itself, “in the end, that’s all we’ve got left. I _know_ they haven’t stolen that away from you.”)

* * *

Before Eiji went to the bar where his life would turn on its axis in the form of _meeting Ash Lynx, _Ibe books them into a hotel to recuperate before heading out. Flights from Japan to America are long; adjusting to a new culture is even longer. Ibe says that hotels and airports are little niche cultures in themselves; a respite from jetlag and judgmental Westerners and passive-aggressive Asians.

So Eiji sits down on the separate bed facing the window, counting the yellow-painted taxis that swim down New York streets like koi fish in a river. Five, ten, twenty-three—then he loses count, and nothing matters.

A text pings his phone which he checks and—and he sighs.

**香** ** Kaori [23:32]  
** _Kaa-san wonders if you landed well._

Eiji rolls his eyes at his sister. Even her attempts at disinterest are nothing but annoying.

**Eiji [23:32]**  
_Stop using Kaa-san as an excuse to check in on me, little intrusive brat. _

**香** ** Kaori [23:32]  
** _I was worried. Sorry for being a decent human being and seeing if you are okay._

Guilt stabs at his heart. Eiji lies back down on the bed and sighs, an arm covering his eyes—sometimes he forgets that he left Kaori alone in Japan, fifteen years old and hormonal. There’s a kinship to having an older brother to squabble with, to tease and provoke; it’s a distraction, a mutual one, from all the other shit that builds up.

Now, she’s alone. Eiji takes out his phone and taps his finger against the keys, before coming up with a response.

**Eiji [23:34]  
** _American Japanese food is disgusting. Their sushi is not authentic. Their natto is not natto. _

**香** ** Kaori [23:35]  
** _Complaining already? So, you are perfectly fine, then. Do you still have the charm I gave to you?_

Eiji takes the charm out his pocket, watching as it shadows the glinting sun outside the New York cityscape.

**Eiji [23:35]  
** _I do not need to find an American wife._

**香** ** Kaori [23:36]  
** _I believe I said ‘_ **恋人** _’, Eiji. _

Kaori has always been so _annoyingly _perceptive. Her eyes are like hawks if he remembers the English idiom; and it is so, _so _fucking annoyingly pointed at _him _all the time. Even the sea cannot stop those stupid eyes.

He almost considers throwing the phone out of the window, before realizing Kaori would still exist in his head, and his mental image of her taunts are _worse _than the real thing. His hand softly hits the bed as he scowls at his phone, jutting out his bottom lip.

**Eiji [23:38]  
** _Why must you do this?_

**香** ** Kaori [23:37]  
** _Because I am not blind to American men, Eiji. You HAVE seen Brendon Urie, yes?_

Yes, dammit all, Eiji _has _paid certain attention to men in the past. Quite a few. Pole-vaulting certainly had its visual appeals past the sport, and Kaori has taken great pleasure in teasing him about it once the emotional scene of him confiding her _what kind of people _he was attracted to had come to pass.

**Eiji [23:40]  
** _I am not bringing home a hot American husband, Kaori. That is not the point of this work assignment. _

**香** ** Kaori [23:41]  
** _Yes, you are going to ‘document American street gangs.’ You have told me many, many times. But I also know you are a stubborn, reckless romantic. I expect him to be blond.  
And tall.  
And to cook well.  
Do not feed him your natto._

**Eiji [23:42]  
** _Shall I just give him your number and arrange a wedding? It would be legal for you in Japan. _

**香** ** Kaori [23:42]  
** _Your taste in men would be vastly inferior to my own. I just have standards for my brother-in-law._

**Eiji [23:44]  
** _I will try my best._

Eji’s thumb hesitates over his keypad before a sigh leaves him softly.

**Eiji [23:44]  
** _You need to talk, don’t you?_

There’s no response, for a while. Sometimes, Kaori does that. Withdraws in on herself when you ask her the tough questions. Eiji can feel his eyes getting heavier and heavier when a reply finally buzzes his phone and jolts him awake.

The reply is exactly what he was suspecting.

**香** ** Kaori [00:05]  
** _She already knows I know why she spends so long around our neighbor’s house.  
I am tired of lying to Tou-san’s face about what she is up to.  
He is sick in hospital and only asks about my part-time job and she uses the neighbor’s like stress relief, and I get more because I must keep it a secret when I know they both know what is going on.  
Sometimes I wish we were more American so I could scream out dramatic speeches about how selfish they both are._

He’s half a world away. If he were with Kaori right now, Eiji would gladly take her to the open beach where she would practice her karate, kicking him as he wore his guards on his hands. She would curse in Japanese (as much as Japanese will allow you to curse), snotty and crying and red-faced.

But he’s half a world away from his sister now. She’s alone and frustrated: the key elements in growing up.

**Eiji [00:07]  
** _I… I do not know what to do for you now except to let you talk.  
If everything goes well here and I end up staying for longer, once you finish all your exams, why not come and visit for a bit? I will be better at English then, and I could show you all the fancy stores in New York.  
It would be a good chance for you to get away for a while. _

**香** ** Kaori [00:09]  
** _Really?_

Eiji smiles to himself.

**Eiji [00:09]  
** _I promise._

**香** ** Kaori [00:13]  
** _Okay. I will do my best. But you had better keep that promise.  
Make sure your Hot American Husband has better fashion sense than you, too._

* * *

(Months down the line, with so little contact, Kaori’s resentment will bubble.

_Damned dirty liar, Eiji. You are a damned dirty liar._)

* * *

Moonlight streams through the small window of Eiji’s apartment, rousing Kaori from her slumber. Her eyes flit open sleepily, blinking slowly as her eyes adjust to the environment around her, thinking of how she even got here in the first place—

_Oh. _Now she remembers. 

Aslan’s jacket is still draped over her, cocooning her. After the emotional reunion, she had flopped down on the sofa in the corner of the room and announced she was taking a nap, but it seems to have been several hours since then.

_I wonder, how long it has been since I fell asleep? _She sits up and glances around, squinting at the lack of light.

“Finally awake?”

Kaori jolts a little at the voice; her eyes adjust finally, and she sees her brother still sat at the table, one of his university textbooks illuminated by his phone’s torch. Her eyes then land on Aslan, curled up on the floor with his head in Eiji’s lap, her brother’s hand running through his blond hair. His glasses have been folded up and put on the table.

Carefully, Kaori crawls over to sit opposite her brother, hands resting on the table. “I did not mean to sleep for so long.” She points at Aslan, voice speaking in quiet Japanese. “It is odd to see him resting, now.”

“Did he not on the train?” Eiji asks, closing his book and keeping his voice hushed.

Kaori shakes her head, sighing. “I was able to see he was tired. The dark lines underneath his eyes. He told me that he would not be able to sleep. He looked…” She searches for the right word. “He did not trust the place well enough to rest comfortably?”

“That makes sense.” Eiji brushes a loose piece of hair from Aslan's face; smiles a little when Aslan wrinkles his nose in protest of the touch. “I was like that a bit when I first moved into our apartment. I would get up a lot in the night.”

_And he would not sleep, scared of something happening to you._

Eiji’s eyes meet hers. “You could have called me, Kaori. To tell me he was in Izumo. I would have come running.”

Kaori bites her lip, hugging her knees. “I know that,” she mumbles, flushing with shame. “I should have told you he was at home.”

“You are not going to apologize?”

“I cannot.” She shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut. “Even if it was wrong, I would not have regretted letting him get lost in Tokyo if I thought he would have hurt you.” Eiji’s gaze on her turns to steel; she shudders under the intensity. “Perhaps it is cruel, but I was worried about you. You thought he was dead.”

Eiji softens at that, looking down at Ash again. “Yes, I did.”

“What… happened? Why was he thought to be dead?”

Eiji shakes his head. “I am sorry, Kaori. That is not my story to tell. Ash has enough people prying into his life without me adding to it.” He brushes Aslan’s hair back behind his ears; Aslan turns over and curls around Eiji’s hand. “I will say that he had a lot of people who wanted to hurt him. He is safe now, though.”

“You really love him.”

There’s a small flush on Eiji’s cheeks, but he doesn’t deny it. “I do. With all my heart. My soul is always with him.”

There are so many questions she wants to ask. About why Aslan did not leave with Eiji when he first flew back, or why he was thought dead. Why Eiji feels the need to protect a former gang leader, or the look on Ash’s face when that man assaulted her on the train. _Has Aslan been through that kind of pain, too? To have his agency robbed from him?_

She thinks back to Aslan’s words. _He’ll ruin the bastard who hurts you. _Or something like that.

_But no, _she decides internally, closing her eyes so Eiji cannot gage her thoughts. _I cannot make this about me, not now. I will tell Eiji about all of that… soon. Maybe. _Kaori eclipses the thoughts from her mind, busying herself with taking Aslan’s jacket from her shoulders and draping it over him as he curls up next to her brother.

“He looks so young.” She murmurs. “I did not know gang members were as old as I am.”

“He is two years older than you,” Eiji corrects, smoothing his hand against Ash’s cheek. “But, yes. He was too young to be in that world. He was brought into it too young.”

Kaori’s cheeks lift as she smiles. “You brought him out of it.”

“He had the strength to follow the trail left behind.” The smile on her brother’s face, the way his eyes cloud over with love… it is rare, she thinks, to have someone in your life that means so much to you. She hopes he always holds onto it. “He has always been strong.”

There are untold stories in her brother’s eyes. When she first pictured gang violence, her mind drifted to the idea of the Yakuza; tattooed men in suits, taking fingers in the name of loyalty. From American movies, the idea morphed into something more romantic; star-crossed lovers in family disputes.

Now, she sees the truth, the reality that many people like to ignore. Gangs can be young kids with little choice, preyed on by older people who crafted an unfair world of lost opportunities and abject poverty and then blame them for all the problems caused by their consequences.

_Aslan, _she wants to cry, _you are such a brave person. You will be safe with my brother. I promise. I am sorry I could not find you in time, Shorter Wong. I would have protected you, too._

At some point, the truth must be discussed. Kaori starts with hesitation, then voices her concerns. “I do not think Kaa-san will be happy with this, Eiji.” Kaori levels with her brother for a moment. “You know what she is like. You know how she reacts to change; how traditional she can be. I do not think she will want this for you.”

“I do not care what she wants. Tou-san, too.” The bluntness of Eiji’s answer surprises her, Kaori’s mouth gaping as Eiji regards nobody but Aslan. “If Ash will allow it, I will stay by his side. Forever, if he wants me. I belong where he does. I want to stay with him.”

There’s a fire to him, one that was never there before. Passion, maybe. It ignited his eyes the moment Aslan stepped out of the shadows and into the light, pulling Eiji away from the encroaching darkness.

Kaori puts her hand on his arm, gives it an affirming squeeze. “Then hold onto him, Eiji. Do _not _let go of him, not even for a moment.”

* * *

“Are you sure you have everything? Your tickets? Clothes? Phone charger?”

Kaori glares at him from across the room, folding the last of her clothing into her case. “Eiji, please stop acting like you are _Kaa-san. _Unlike you, I am perfectly capable of packing my own suitcase.”

The _gall _of Kaori sometimes… it is _frustrating. _Yes, she is sixteen years old, nearly seventeen. Yes, Eiji knows that his little sister is perfectly capable of journeying back to Izumo by herself—Ash is staying with him and she has high school after all—but she can be so thick-headed and stubborn.

(Not unlike himself at times, he realises, but he’ll never give Kaori the satisfaction that it ever crossed his mind.)

Eiji nods at her, about to go out of the room when he turns on his heel. “Are you _sure—”_

“Go away and make me some breakfast already, you mother-hen!”He’s then slapped in the face with a hand towel, and he takes that as a cue to leave. 

Eiji dumps the hand towel into the laundry basket, grumbling in _politely _aggressive Japanese as he makes his way to the kitchen. He can see Ash reading the newspaper, nursing a cup of coffee and looking dead to the world, and Eiji ignores the way his heart twists at the sight.

_Too long. It has been far too long._

Ash notices him staring, looking at him from behind his coffee mug. “What?”

“Nothing.” Eiji grabs some bread off the counter, hiding his grin as he sets it in the toaster. “Perhaps you should go and watch _Crayon Shin-chan, _to improve your Japanese if you’re struggling so much with the newspaper?”

Ash flexes the newspaper to make a point. “I can read this just fine.”

“You have been on the same page for fifteen minutes, Ash.” There’s almost a song-like quality to his words as he teases, watching the bread slowly toast. (Can’t let it burn too much, or the _Brat _will complain). “I know you are sounding out the words in your head and using your phone to translate the ones you do not understand.”

Ash narrows his eyes, jutting out his lip and saying nothing. He huffs and goes back to the newspaper.

There’s a part of him, a small part of his heart that is already starting to fracture. Because as much as he wants to ask Ash to stay (he knows Ash would out of obligation—he won’t force Ash into anything), he can’t, and loving the sight of _Ash in his kitchen, _teasing Ash at breakfast, seeing Ash read his country’s newspapers and struggle with his mother tongue…

It feels too domestic. A life caught in a dream that Eiji never thought he’d be allowed to live with Ash. (In another world, Ash wouldn’t be here. He’d have bled out. Eiji doesn’t want to think about that.)

The burning in his mind persists; he ignores it to butter Kaori’s toast. He cuts into the bread a little, pressuring the knife down too much. Kaori doesn’t often have toast in the morning, preferring Japanese breakfasts, but this is quick and easy.

“Kaori!” He calls up in the entryway in Japanese. “Breakfast is done! Please, hurry up!”

_“I am packing! Be patient!” _There’s a pause. _“Do not eat it!”_

“Then hurry up, Kaori!”

_“Bastard!”_

Ash snorts from behind his mug, putting down the paper. “_Wow…_”

Eiji puts the plate aside along with a cup of orange juice for himself, sitting across from Ash and sighs. “This is the little brat I had to deal with every day before leaving with Ibe-san. Now, she is more hormonal and stubborn. She has gotten so much worse.” His head hits the table. _“And now she knows English curse words. I am doomed.”_

Eiji feels Ash poking the top of his head with his finger. “She’s not that bad.”

“A _brat._”

“Well, okay. Yeah, she’s a brat.” Ash folds up his glasses. “Especially with coffee. Seriously, that shit is like drinking pure sugar. Why does she even like it?”

Eiji grumbles into the hardwood table. “Our mother never let her have it, so she over-indulges.”

“Ah, the rebellious teenager. So, it runs in the family.”

Eiji lifts his head up. “How wonderful. You are _fond _of her.” He scowls like he just got a bad taste in his mouth, even more at Ash’s lack of denial. “Do not befriend her, Aslan. I mean it. I do not need you two teaming up.”

The very _idea _of Kaori and Ash getting along is enough to make Eiji want to remove his spine and strangle himself with it. Ash can be disagreeable when he teases Eiji, so to have Kaori’s mountains of Eiji’s childhood on top of it… oh, that would be a disaster. He needs to stockpile up on Kaori’s pre-expertise in makeup photographs. Maybe some of Ash’s reaction shots to Halloween, too.

Still. The idea of Kaori and Ash getting along isn’t… oh, hell, he loves it really.

Not that he will admit it.

Eiji begins to stir his tea absent-mindedly, the conversation lulling into a gentle silence. This happens with him and Ash, sometimes. Words will trail off, drop off the edge, and the silence cocoons them. There’s no gunfire to anticipate here, so words are the shot that will startle them (unless Tycoon Kaori blasts through the door).

“Hey,” Ash begins. “Is it really okay for Kaori to travel back on the train on her own?”

_Right. _Teenagers typically didn’t travel on their own for such long distances, did they? “We have more trust in the community here. Children at the age of six can walk to school on their own.” Eiji explains, taking a sip of his tea—wincing, then standing up to add some honey to it. “Are you worried about her? I can always get her to call us when she gets back.”

“She hasn’t talked to you?”

Eiji pauses, spoon half-way dipped into his cup. “About what?” He asks. “Did something happen to her?”

Ash purses his lips.

“_Ash,_” Eiji presses.

“I don’t know how much she wants me to say to you. This is something she should talk to you about, not me.”

Now, Eiji’s heart does swell with pride that Ash is being so respectful of Kaori’s boundaries; yet can feel familiar frustration bubbling up in his gut. “This is my sister we are talking about, Aslan Jade Callenreese.” Pulling out the full name makes Ash wince. Eiji pushes further. “I will ask again. Did something happen to her?”

“I—”

“Eiji, stop interrogating him.” Ash breathes a sigh of relief when Kaori appears at the entryway to the kitchen. Eiji can’t help the worry that burns at his throat when he sees the uncertain expression on Kaori’s face, the way she rubs her arms nervously. “I did not want him saying anything.”

Eiji pushes up from the breakfast table and goes over to hold Kaori’s shoulders. “Saying anything about what?” He checks his sister over. “Did someone hurt you? Is it school? Or are they fighting at home again?”

Kaori hangs her head again, looking out the window.

Eiji glances over at Ash. “Can you give us a moment, Ash?”

“Sure thing. Call if you need anything.” Ash walks past them, patting Kaori’s shoulder before making his way to Eiji’s room. He hears him whisper, “remember, _deprogram,_” to Kaori beforehand before that mop of golden hair is swallowed by shadows.

Coaxing Kaori to sit down is easy enough; she follows him like a puppet on a string. There’s something… _wrong _with seeing Kaori with such a nervous, trepid hesitance to her steps; the downcast look in her eyes. Whatever this is, it is plaguing her mind and infecting her usual-spunky attitude. He almost misses her brattiness, her spoiled tendencies.

Eiji puts a hand on her forearm. “Take your time.”

Kaori nods, covering her mouth with her hand as she starts to shake. She opens her jaw a few times, only to snap it back shut when all that comes out is a pathetic wheeze of air.

“Would… you like me to try and guess? You can nod or shake your head.”

Kaori looks up at him, before nodding. _Okay, we’re getting somewhere. _“Did someone harm you?”

Kaori goes to shake her head, only to pause. She reconsiders it, before her hand moves, going over her heart.

“Someone harmed… your heart? You got rejected?” Kaori scowls and shakes her head. As if Kaori would care if she got rejected romantically. If she has crap coffee and videogames, she can survive stupid teenage boys. “Oh! Did you get hurt emotionally? Someone made you feel unsafe?”

To his horror, Kaori nods at the last part.

_No. Japan is safe. I was supposed to show Ash it was safe. She felt unsafe. Someone hurt her. Did Ash protect her, then? Is that why he was so hesitant to let her go on the train home alone—_

In his mind, something clicks.

“Kaori,” he begins, slow and hesitant. “Did something happen on the train ride here?”

His little sister stops looking at him, opting to hug her knees, and dread fights the acid in his stomach as realisation dawns on him. Whatever happened, it can’t have been on the overnight train. Ash was with her; there are private rooms. No access to anyone else who could hurt her, and he _knows _Ash. But if something happened on the public train to his apartment…

He squeezes her arm, gently urging her. “Kaori, please tell me what happened.”

There’s a shaky little breath from Kaori, sucked in through gritted teeth. A furious blush stretches up to her neck, little tears in the corners of her eyes, and suddenly, Eiji wishes he had the weight of a gun in his hand. He had it with Ash when he stared Dino Golzine in the eye and fired off a trail right into the bastard’s shoulder. He should have plundered that knife into Arthur’s neck when they hurt Shorter.

Now, Kaori’s crying, and he wants to see the world bathed in fire. _How dare you hurt the ones I love._

“Kaori?”

“…groped.”

Eiji feels his brain stop working. “_What?”_

It comes out in a half-coherent babble. “I—I was groped. On the train. Older man. Businessman, I think. He wore a fancy suit.” Her words are stuttered, reverting to child syntax. “Not the first time it has happened to me, but Ash, he—he slammed the man into the door and yelled at him.” Eiji can’t help but smile a little at that; Kaori tries to return it, but it’s too watery to be genuine.

Yet, his mind locks onto something. _Not the first time._

“How long?”

Kaori curls up tighter.

“Kaori, _how long has this been going on?_”

A heavy, thick swallow comes from Kaori, her little limbs shaking like a puppet held in suspension. Her painted toes have chips in the polish from how hard her feet dig into the floor, and he sees how chalky her skin is becoming.

“Every time I go on a public train.”

Eiji feels the burning from his bullet wound. “Kaori, you take the train to _school_.”

She shrugs, clenching her fist. “The same group of boys. Always. I get off earlier stops to avoid it now, to go to work. I-I have told the school about it before, a lot. But—”

_“But?”_

Her lip trembles. “They told me I was… asking for it. That I should not be wearing make-up, that I should not be so flirty.” Kaori clenches her fists so tight; he can see droplets of blood on his kitchen floor. “Perhaps it is so _very _convenient that their parents happen to be donating so much money to the school. I just—” She breaks into a sob. “I want it to _stop._”

In an instant, Eiji sees a thousand different mirrors.

He sees the way Ash flinches at the touches of older men and women; the nightmares he screams about until Eiji pulls him back down to reality. He sees Jessica wrapped in a blanket with eyes unfocused as she tries to return to the world of the living. He sees millions of unnamed souls, caged by gang warfare and screaming to be let out, _help us, help us, help us._

Eiji never thought he would see his own baby _sister _in this group of mirrors, yet there she is, and he was blind to it.

He takes his hand away from her and goes on his phone.

“Eiji…?” She asks, unsure.

“I am getting you a private room on the train. You will not be in danger of sharing.” He tells her, already loading his card information on the booking sight. In another tab, he opens a tab for a website for a local taxi company in Izumo. “And I will book a cab for you the moment you get off of the station to go back home.”

“Wh—” She stammers. “Eiji, no, that is far too much money!”

Eiji waves his hand. “If it is, Ash can pay for the rest of it. He owes you one train ride anyway.” After the payment has gone through, Eiji puts his phone down and grabs Kaori’s hands. “You know this was not your fault, right? You did not ask for any of it. _They _hurt you. Not the other way around.”

A few tears cut through the embarrassed blush on her face. “Yes, I-I know. Aslan has already said something like that to me.”

“He did?”

“He told me to, uh, deprogram my shame.” Kaori manages a smile as Eiji uses his thumbs to wipe away her tears. “That it will feel easier once I know it is not my fault.”

“That’s right. He’s right. You did nothing wrong.” Eiji then grabs her breakfast plate and sets it in front of her. “Listen, Kaori. If this persists, I want you to tell me. I will talk to your school for you.” She tenses visibly, but he holds up a finger. “I _am _going to get this resolved for you. If it truly persists after my efforts, you tell _Kaa-san _you are moving to Tokyo to continue high school here.”

Kaori drops the toast she has just picked up. “_What? _You are not being serious._”_

“I am, Kaori.” Eiji can see just how slack-jawed Kaori is now, and he carries on. “If they do not give you peace in this year, you come up and live here, with me.” _And Ash, _he begs internally. “Ibe-san and I can help you settle into any high school you want. We can find those that specialize in engineering, or track, or whatever it is you still love.”

“B-But—!” Despite her protests, Eiji can _see _the cogs in her brain agreeing with him. “Kaa-san and Tou-san, they would never—”

“_I _will deal with them. You have had to deal with their problems long enough.”

The next moments are a little hazy; he can see Kaori’s eyes go glassy with fat tears, and she’s launching herself into his arms. He has to stand up to really hug her, holds her and kisses the top of her head as she cries into his chest. Kaori is a little firecracker, that much is true, but he cares about her to know when those flames need kindling.

Eiji opens his eyes when he sees Ash hovering in the doorway. “Everything okay?” He asks, leaning against the wall.

He’s about to reply when Kaori shuffles in his arms and opens up one arm, pointing to Ash. Something warm, like honey, pools in his gut.

_Oh._

Ash, however, seems confused. “What’s she doing?”

“She wants you to join us,” Eiji explains, with Kaori doing a _come-hither _movement with her hand and nodding fast. Eiji opens up his other arm too, grinning at Ash. “She can be very insistent when it comes to family hugs, you know.”

Kaori stamps her foot to prove it. _Spoiled brat._

There’s a small, _small _red dust of blush on Ash’s nose. He slowly walks up beside Eiji, nearly doubling over when Kaori _latches _onto him and starts crying again, burying her head into both boys. Eiji rolls his eyes; she can be so dramatic, but Ash just stands there, frozen.

“Give it two minutes, you will be free.” Eiji teases, rubbing Ash’s back.

“…I don’t mind if it turns out longer.” Ash mumbles, awkwardly patting Kaori’s shoulder.

There’s a smile on Ash's lips, though, so Eiji doesn’t need to worry.

* * *

Kaori says goodbye the next morning, after a furious talk from their mother over the phone. _Spontaneous _is not exactly in Kaori’s itinerary for her personality and having the rumor of a _handsome foreigner spiriting her away to a love hotel _trailing after her isn’t going to be kind to her at school, but Eiji knows his sister. She’s strong enough to handle gossip.

“Text me the _moment_ you get back to Izumo,” Eiji scolds, folding his arms and frowning. “I mean it, Kaori. No more detours. No flights of fancy. Go home and let Mother’s mind be at ease.”

She juts out her bottom lip. “Do not tell me you are not pleased with what I did.”

Eiji _refuses _to give her the satisfaction of agreeing with her, mirroring her jutted lip as his arms tighten. “Straight home, Kaori. You worried our parents enough.”

“_Fine._” She sighs with a smile, leaning in to give her brother a quick hug. “Treat each other well, yes? I will be back to visit at the end of the month.”

“Oh, _wonderful._” Eiji teases, arms winding around her in kind.

Kaori smiles into brother’s shoulder, and her hold on him tightens; Eiji’s heart swells when she murmurs a further, “be happier now, Eiji. I see how much care you have for each other. Hold onto each other.”

And, sometimes, despite the romance and violence of New York, _this _is what Eiji has missed; the simple joy of holding someone you love without it being a declaration of unstable permanence; Kaori is not a bond forged from fire, but a shelter from the storm of New York that he downplayed as a _kid sister; _since returning to Japan, she’s been his _rock. _

That love isn’t something he could just _walk away _from.

Kaori pulls away, sets her sights on Ash—and Eiji’s heart stutters when she hugs him. Lightly, not the same affection she would give Eiji, but the way it makes Ash’s eyes widen and stumble back, it’s clear he’s more affected by this then he will ever say. Kaori murmurs something to him; Ash minutely nods, hesitates—then manages a brief squeeze before pulling away from Kaori.

“Aslan.” She pats the top of his head, giving him a smile. “It was nice to finally to meet you.”

Ash’s jade eyes pop. “It _was?”_

Kaori quirks a brow, giving Eiji a _look _that Eiji knows means, _‘is this American truly so dense?’ _before she shakes her head and flicks Ash’s nose. “Do not be stupid. I already know your IQ is very high. You are a very interesting person.”

There are very few times Eiji has known Ash dumbfounded, not knowing what to say. More times than not, it was one of the tragic backdrops or looming pumpkin trauma. (For some reason, when breakfast rolled around, Ash had refused to _look _at Eiji that morning, and Kaori had burst out laughing). But, Eiji reasons, Ash has never met the force known as _Okumura Kaori _before today. So, he stands there, watching as Ash blinks owlishly at his little sister, and slips his hand into Ash’s during this stupor.

Kaori takes a step back, hearing the final call for the train, and waves. “Be well, both of you!”

Ash and Eiji stay at the station until the train is but a dot on Tokyo’s sunset-dipped horizon, and Kaori’s words are a rush in the wind left behind by the departing carriage. Ash’s fingers have interlaced with Eiji’s; and Eiji can feel the callouses, the scars, the years of gunplay making their mark on such young hands.

Eiji chooses to hold it tighter.

“So,” Ash looks at Eiji beyond the frame of his glasses, “when you said _kid sister, _I imagined, like, a cute ten-year-old trailing after you. Bows in her hair, and all that. Not… _Kaori._”

“Oh, yes. I did, didn’t I?” Eiji’s smirk reaches his eyes. “I say _kid sister _because it pisses her off.”

“What the hell—?!” Ash almost splutters with an aborted laugh, hiding behind his free hand. “You really _are _an underhanded fucker, aren’t you?” 

Eiji simply answers Ash with a grin.

* * *

(Sometimes, Ash dreams of Shorter dead.

Red writing on the wall.

_Go home, Ash. It’s time to go home._

He stays with Shorter until his bones sprout cherry-blossom flowers.)

* * *

Ash has his first panic attack three days later. Safety, as it turns out, puts him more on alert than a life of constant danger.

Eiji is well-aware of how much Ash sticks out in Tokyo. Not as much as he would in Izumo—there are more foreigners in big cities than in the backwoods towns in Japan—but he’s tall, blond and handsome, towering over most people. Even Eiji, who is quite tall by Japanese standards, is barely up to Ash’s shoulder.

This lack of being able to blend in has Ash on edge. The adrenaline of going to see Eiji isn’t tiding him over anymore.

It's no huge incident that happens. There's no marked occasion. These moments just build and build; odd stares, towering over people with his height, his blond hair causing people to fawn over him.

One boy that Eiji knows - Ritsuka Sato, is that supposed to be his name? - even marvels on how Eiji could _"possibly know someone like him," _in faux-politeness, passive-aggressiveness dripping from his mouth. Eiji splutters when Ash rips his hands away from Eiji and walks out, not apologising when he bumps into a random woman entering the store. Eiji blinks, stunned for a moment, before abandoning his basket and running after him.

Ash, much to Eiji’s lack of surprise, doesn’t end too far. He couldn’t wander and leave Eiji alone, no matter how vicious the fight (and, thankfully, this doesn’t nearly constitute a _fight _as much as a _what the fuck just happened_ moment). Eiji finds him after around five minutes of running, sat against a wall in an alleyway and looking up at the sky.

“Ash!” Eiji nearly doubles-over and tries to catch his breath, “I was worried! Are you alr—”

When he looks at Ash, he sees quickly that something is very, _very _wrong. He knows what Ash looks like when he’s scared; he hides away until it passes, then wears a blank face until he walks on his problems, but Ash is _pale _this time. He looks at Eiji like he’s a stranger who found a lost child in an alleyway.

“Eiji,” he croaks. “I can’t do this.”

Kneeling in front of him, Eiji puts his hand on Ash’s knee. “You cannot do what, Aslan?” He coaxes; gently, soft words.

“Stay here.” Ash grits his teeth. “I can’t. Fuck, I can’t—”

It’s like clockwork; Eiji takes off his coat and wraps it around Ash’s shoulders; Ash clings to Eiji like he’s a lifeline, matching his breathing to the sound of Eiji’s thrumming heartbeat, to the sonata of Eiji’s words. Japanese or English, Ash seems receptive to both, and it’s a bizarre little mix of soothing English anecdotes and hummed Japanese singing that brings Ash back down to a level of calm. At this moment, Ash has already trained himself to calm down; from the months in therapy that he's managed to tell EIiji about, there are tools that help Ash to cope in the day-to-day. 

Eiji is the biggest one. The most effective. Eiji wears that like a trophy he won at pole-vaulting. 

“Shit—” Ash shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Eiji soothes. “Are you ready to talk about it?”

Ash buries his head into the crook of Eiji’s neck. “Just—that guy. He was right.”

“About?”

“I mean—fuck _look _at me, Eiji. I stick out.” Ash covers his eyes. “He never thought you’d be friends with someone like me. I know what that means. I’m not meant to _be _here.” 

“Ash.” Eiji runs his hands through Ash’s hair, presses a kiss to the top of his head. “You are very different than most Japanese people, that is true.”

“See? So, you _know_ I don’t—”

Eiji cuts him off. “And, quite frankly, that mindset is absolute _bullshit._” Ash nearly chokes at Eiji’s profanity. “Sato is a passive-aggressive shit, I realise now, and I am certain his mother is racist. He learns it from her.”

Ash scrunches up his nose. “You can’t be racist to white people, Eiji.”

“It is like I said,” Eiji says, undeterred. “You are _very_ different from most Japanese people. We are not America, Ash.” Eiji’s brow lifts, tucking Ash’s hair behind his ears. “Believe it or not, a lot of foreigners find it difficult to settle in here, especially in corporate life. It is why I stayed away from it. It is why Kaori never wants to work for a company.”

“…So, it’s not just me?”

Eiji smiles, moving so he is sat crossed legged in front of Ash. “You know that _passing _for Japanese is a thing among Korean and Chinese when they come here to work for companies? Yet if they find out, sometimes they will treat you worse. America is very open with that discrimination; Japan is very subtle. You are just used to seeing it one way. Now, you are learning to see it another.”

Ash looks down at his feet, and Eiji can see the little cogs in that smart mind of his begin to work. Eiji loves Japan. He loves the safety, the community he grew up in, the opportunities and freedom. Yet, there are aspects to his own culture that, when he went to America, he could look back on with a critical lens.

If he didn’t love Japan, he wouldn’t have invited Ash. But everything requires learning.

“Is this what you went through? When you first came to the states?” Ash asks, tentatively.

Eiji nods, resting his hand on Ash’s knee. “Everyone was so blunt. I thought you all rude.” He smiles at Ash. “You helped me with that, you know?”

“I did?”

“Mm. You made kind jokes about it. I made them back. I felt…” Eiji struggles for the word. “At an equal level. You would tease me for being Japanese, I would tease you for being America, and it was like I… had my own space? I was not a foreigner, not an American. I was just Eiji, you were just Ash.”

Finally, _finally, _that beautiful smile returns to Ash’s face. “And now the roles are reversed.” Those jade eyes pop out against encroaching alleyway shadows. “I suppose I’ll be the one making crappy sandwiches and treating your wounds like shit, now?”

“Do not flatter yourself, Aslan.” Eiji shuffles and wraps his arm around Ash. “You are not a good cook, to begin with.” Eiji searches for something else to say. “You said,” Eiji begins, and those jade eyes begin to light up again. It leaves him breathless. “You said you wanted me to stay with you, right? Do you remember what I said?”

“Forever,” Ash recalls, those eyes beginning to look like a jade phoenix is rising.

“I have one more question for you, Aslan.” Eiji kneels up, backs away from him, and for once, he is taller than Ash. “And I want you to answer me truthfully. I do not want to hear of your pain, of your doubts, of your backpedaling. I just want to hear your truth. A simple answer.”

“O-Okay.” Ash almost looks lost with the lack of contact. Eiji longs to crawl back into his arms, but he needs to know. He needs to see this. Ash breathes slowly. “What is it?”

“A life with me.” Eiji holds out a hand. “If that is what you desire, I will give it to you. So, do you want it?”

It’s not like Eiji doesn’t know the significance of how he’s appearing. He’s holding out his left hand, on both knees, promising to share his life with a man he went to hell and back for. The realization of what he’s offering is swimming in Ash’s eyes like koi fish in water, and soon enough, Ash’s tears are slipping down his face with his shocked expression unchanging.

Eiji knows Ash. He knows the thoughts that poison his mind. Undeserving, unloving, a man who deserved to die on those cold New York streets. But Eiji has seen the blood spilled on his hands; it washed away when Ash cried for the souls he took, for the trauma, he went through, and above all else, Aslan is a man who loves.

Ash stares at his hand. Eiji sees the way the blond man’s fingers twitch like he’s reaching for a gun; except, this time, the trigger to happiness is him reaching out.

_Oh, Ash, my lovely Aslan, my lionheart. The idea of love frightens you, even as you crossed the sea to look from afar._

Ash tries to speak, a few times. The way his mouth gapes, the dry rasp that comes from his throat. Eiji continues to kneel, to hold his hand out, to wait for him to catch up.

“I want to,” Ash says, breathless. He looks like he’s just run a marathon, the way his cheeks have lit up. His hands still tremble. “God, do I want to, Eiji, but—”

“Aslan.” At his full name, Ash stiffens. “This will make you happy, is that what you are saying?”

Ash nearly chokes. “Of course it will! I’m just saying—”

“Then it is already yours.” Eiji doesn’t force Ash’s hand into his, only offers a smile that will be Ash’s to keep regardless. “Whenever you are ready to accept it, a life with me belongs to you. Do not mistake me: I will not force you into it. You could go back to America right now and I would accept it because it is your life to decide for.”

Eiji reaches over, watches how trained those beautiful jade eyes are on his hand and brushes back Ash’s bangs. Both their eyes are going glassy, now. “But whenever and if ever you are ready, I am here waiting for you. My soul is always with you.”

“Mine, too.” Ash chokes out in a gasp, grabbing onto Eiji’s hand like a lifeline. “Soon.” He promises. “I’ll give you an answer soon. I swear.”

Eiji smiles, holding Ash’s hand just as tightly. “Then I will look forward to it, Aslan.”

* * *

Ash doesn’t really leave the apartment much without Eiji after that. Eiji doesn’t push him too, only gently leads when the opportunity arises.

* * *

“Ash? I’m home!” Eiji drops his keys into the small dish by the door, taking off his shoes and coat. “Sorry I am late; we had a meeting with my professor about a new project that I told you about—I assume you got my message?”

Ever golden, ever bright, Ash pokes his head around the kitchen door and greets him with a wave. “Hey. Yeah, I got it.” He holds up his phone. “Long day?”

“Like you would not _believe._” Eiji drops his bag onto their small table and sits down, resting his head on the table. “I almost prefer New York.”

“Almost?” Ash says coyly, sitting down next to him. “Is your age finally getting to you, _Onii-chan?”_

Eiji glares at him, head still on the table. “Do not.”

Ash eyes him with idle curiousity; Eiji can feel Ash’s gaze drag over him, like a prospector examining a coin to check for gold, and the smile on Ash’s face is him finding something even more precious. It’s heart-warming, in a way, to know he’s treasured by someone this much.

He barely even notices when Ash moves on his knees to behind Eiji, until he feels strong hands resting on his shoulders. “Hey,” Ash murmurs in his ear. “Can I do something for you?”

“Mm?” Lazily, Eiji nods and—oh.

_Ohhhhh._

Ash begins working out the knots in Eiji’s shoulders, and Eiji _melts. _Each bit of stress and tension is worked under soft, caring hands, and he sinks further into the table until he’s a babbling mess of relaxation. Ash is probably laughing to himself there—bastard always did find Eiji amusing—but he doesn’t care.

“You work hard,” Ash says, thumbs going into _just _the right knot as Eiji sighs happily. “But you can let me take care of you too, you know.”

“Forever?” He murmurs, dazed.

Ash’s hands paused for too long, and the spell is broken. “…Maybe. We’ll see.”

There’s a small splinter that enters Eiji’s heart and starts the roots of its cracks, but he covers it up well with a smile. Ash can’t know how much it is breaking him.

“I will wait for you, however long you need me to.”

Ash has had enough burdens to bear. Eiji will not be one of them.

He will never know.

* * *

Eiji never means for Ash to find out.

True, he’s not particularly used to _hiding _things from Ash. But having his best friend, his soulmate apparently _dead _for almost a year only for him to tip up on his doorstep as anything other than an alcoholic-infused ghost has upturned his entire world, and really, Eiji is surprised at himself that he didn’t cave earlier.

Ash isn’t supposed to find out.

Eiji locks himself in his room, a bottle of brandy in hand, and cries out Shorter’s name; cries for Skip; cries for everyone who’s ever been hurt in his name and beyond. The tears stream and the sunlight is kind enough to not blind him to it; to let the photographs surround his feet like fish in a pond.

They lick at his guilty conscience, salt on his wounds.

Ash isn’t supposed to find out, but he does seconds later.

“Eiji, are you back? Kaori said she couldn’t get a hold of you—” Ash opens the door and stares.

_“Eiji!” _He drops the grocery bags and sends food rolling on the floor. He rushes up, drops to his knees and puts his hands on Eiji’s shoulders. “What happened? Did someone come in and hurt you? Are you—” Ash then spies the brandy bottle and picks it up, narrowing his eyes. “Eiji? When did you start drinking…?”

“…’s my best friend.”

Ash snaps his head to look at Eiji. “What?” He’s so silly. So very kind. Eiji giggles.

“Brandy. _Bu-ran-dee. _Americansss? Say it so _sharp._” Eiji pokes the bottle, fresh tears streaking down his face. “We say it _soft. _Klutzy Japanese, so soft at the edges. ‘m no knife. Just… _soft._”

“Eiji,” Ash starts slow, trying to level with him. “Did you have the entire bottle?”

Eiji peers at it closer. “…wasn’t s’psed… empty it. None left for later.” There’s a little, pathetic laugh hiccupping from his throat. “Can’t… ‘ven addict right. Useless. _Useless._”

“You’re not useless.” Ash pushes the brandy bottle away, only to stop _dead _at the sight of the photographs. Eiji’s not blind; the sunlight won’t let him, and Ash can’t help but stare. “Eiji, what… what is all this?”

“ぼち.” Another high-strained sob wheezes from Eiji’s throat. “…’s all I had left.”

“I don’t—I don’t know that word.” Ash stumbles over himself, biting his lip. “Eiji, tell me what to do. What do you need me to do?”

_Stay. _

His heart fractures.

_But that would force you to be bound to me. I can’t do that. You deserve to fly too. _

Eiji slumps against Ash’s chest, tears falling hard.

* * *

It’s been almost two weeks since Kaori came home when she gets a phone call.

She’s sat at her desk, pointedly ignoring her piles of homework as she paints her toes a bright green, in-tune with the festive season that, unfortunately, she will spend alone again.

It doesn’t help that Christmas is a festive season for couples, doesn’t help that now even Kaori’s romantically redundant brother somehow managed to net himself a hot American boyfriend, doesn’t help that Kaori can’t find _anyone _who’s even remotely attractive to her.

It’s not that she’s got high standards, she thinks. She hears people talk of crushes and racy nights in love hotels, but she just doesn’t _feel _that for anyone. There have been times, she thinks, she felt what _could _constitute a crush for close friends she has had, deep feelings that metamorphosized into something romantic, but—

Those are rare and even rarer to be reciprocated.

Kaori sighs and leans back on her desk, arm hanging over her chair as she takes a bite of the green apple she stole from her mother, lazily chewing until she’s half-devoured it. She swallows hard, putting her nail polish aside to _finally _brave going about her homework, when—

_Oh, thank fuck. _Her phone starts ringing. Kaori happily brushes her papers aside and grabs her phone, feet resting on her desk. “もしもし?”

The phone is silent on the other end for a moment. _“Uh, hey.”_

Kaori sits up. “Aslan?” She asks, surprised as she switches to English. “You are calling me? Is everything alright?”

There’s static on the other end—although that could just be Aslan breathing nervously?—and Kaori holds the phone closer to her ear. _“Do you know how to make miso?”_

Her brain needs to kick itself to startup. “Excuse me?”

_“Miso soup. Eiji has it sometimes. Do you know how to make it?”_

“I—yes. Of course, I do.” Kaori crosses her legs. Her mother taught it to her ages ago when she went back to work; it’s been a frequent quick breakfast before school for her to make for herself. “Why do you ask?”

_“Can you help me? Like—not come here obviously. Just direct me on how to do it.”_

“Aslan,” Kaori starts, “you are aware there are online articles on how to make it, yes? There is nothing I could tell you that they could not. Surely you are able to search up English webpages that will direct you how.”

There’s another heavy pause, before Aslan responds, “…_you know how Eiji would like it, though._”

_Besotted. Utterly besotted. A man in love. _Kaori’s fond little grin can’t be contained, even seeping through to her voice, laughing a little. “I did not know Eiji had found himself such a diligent little househusband taking care of him so much. He is very lucky!”

_“Shut up, brat. I won’t buy your coffee anymore.”_

“If you want me to help you, then yes you will. In fact, I will make you buy me pumpkin spice.”

Aslan _splutters. “Just like your brother. Spoiled, under-handed fucking brat.”_

“Is that a yes?”

There’s a very, _very _defeated sigh on the other end of the phone. _“God, you would have gotten along with Shorter.” _Kaori blinks in surprise—_that _is a name she’s heard crop up a few times, but she doesn’t question it. Now isn’t the time. _“Right. I’m listening. Tell me what to do.”_

Kaori grins an impish little thing. “Well, the first thing you should do is dress in a white buttoned shirt. Eiji likes that look on you.”

_“You little brat—” _He pauses. “…_He does?”_

“Cannot lift his eyes from you.”

“…_I’ll call you back.”_

Kaori throws her head back and laughs as Aslan hastily hangs up the phone.

* * *

(Sometimes, in Ash’s dreams, they sit in a field of golden rye. He’s not quite there, behind a wall of glass, but he sees everyone he’s ever let down.

He sees Griffin in his prime, eyes full of warmth. He sees Skip, locked in a child’s body without a chance to grow up and fear the world. He sees Jennifer, the mother that _could _have been had his father never been in the picture.

He sees Shorter.

Once, Shorter looks back at him, and his shades fall down his nose from the shock.

_“Ash,” _he calls, “_Ash, you’re not supposed to be here. Go home, Ash—” _

Then Ash will wake up screaming, and Eiji will need to do everything to pull him back to reality.)

* * *

When Eiji gets home again, Ash is laughing to himself. That, Eiji figures, isn’t going to bode well. He walks in, slowly, a little nervous, and finds Ash sitting on the sofa with a hand slapped to his mouth and trying to hold back laughter.

“Ash…?” Eiji leans over the back of the couch. “What is so funny?”

Ash doesn’t even look up, but holds his phone up and—

_No. _

A flush goes down to his neck. Somehow, _somehow, _Ash has found Eiji’s photographs of when his mother loved dressing him up as _Nori Nori. _He splutters, feeling the heat go to his ears, dropping his books on the table.

“How—how did you—?!” Eiji lunges for the phone, but Ash is quicker to step away. “Stop looking at that! Give it here!”

“Eiji, you’re _adorable _here. Look at you! So cute, _sweetie._” He coos, and curse the height difference, curse it _all. _Ash holds the phone up tauntingly, smile so wide Eiji hopes it hurts. (Curse it all, it’s still beautiful). “Look! Your Mom even got the beak down and feathers everything!”

“You are horrible. _Horrible. _How did you even…get…” Eiji trails off, a sudden feeling of revenge bubbling up in his gut. “Oh, Kaori is _dead. _She is dead. I am going to get her back for this. It was her, wasn’t it?”

Ash grins, swiping through to the next one. “I wanted to see what your childhood was like, and she said it was her job to show the absolute most embarrassing parts of it.” Ash pauses, looking at Eiji’s face on the screen. “It’s kind of nice, actually.”

“How on Earth is having a brat like her for a sister _nice?!” _Eiji complains, resting his forehead against Ash’s back. “I am going to put salt in all of her coffee.”

“…Just is, I guess. That she has all this stuff of you.”

_Oh. _

“Including a very nice video of you singing the _Nori Nori _theme song?”

“Oh, for the love of—!”

That night, they’re both laying in Eiji’s bed, facing each other. They turned the lights off, but the entryway lights are still on, and Eiji can see every edge in Ash’s beautiful face. It’s an odd thing, really. To see someone up close, to see everything to detailed, but Ash truly _is _beautiful. Worn and bruised, but still so beautiful.

“So,” Eiji murmurs, as Ash blinks sleepily at him. “When did you get so familiar with texting Kaori?”

Ash laughs lazily. “Since last week. I asked for some advice on something, she’s been badgering me ever since.”

“Badgering…?” Eiji narrows his eyes. “I do not know that one.”

“Pestering. Nagging.”

“Oh, so she was annoying you for answers.” Eiji nods, jutting out his lip. “That suits her a lot. Badgers are very annoying. Though she is more of a fox, I think. Very sneaky.”

“She outfoxes you?”

Eiji sighs, heavily, resting his head against Ash’s. He can feel the smile on Ash’s face. “I do not understand, but I know that is a pun. Enough with your awful humour.”

Ash’s arms gently wrap around Eiji to pull him closer, as does Eiji’s around Ash in kind. It’s moments like this where Eiji can use his hands to be his eyes; guiding his fingers around each tight, taut scar, where the skin rises and dips, smoothens and goes jagged. Moment after moment where gang life caged Ash, teeth-bared and merciless, he fought like a lion.

“You don’t,” Ash licks his dry lips and speaks quietly, “mind them, do you?”

Eiji pauses for a moment, lifting his gaze to meet Ash’s. It’s not often Ash asks things like this of him; usually, Eiji’s love is the one thing that anchors him. Eiji doesn’t say anything, but shifts to sit on his knees, pulling Ash up with him.

“Let me show you?”

Ash nods, watching Eiji with a gaze resembling heated chips of jade as Eiji moves around to Ash’s bare back—Ash had decided not to wear a shirt despite the cold. Eiji guesses it’s for skin contact. He doesn’t mind; Eiji decided not to wear one either. His fingers still trace up and down Ash’s back, before he leans in and presses a soft, warm kiss to the largest.

Ash’s breathing stutters, swallowing hard. Eiji isn’t deterred, pressing several down the jagged mark, arms winding their way around Ash’s abdomen to hold him close. Ash’s hands cover Eiji’s.

Eiji’s seeking lips press plush kisses to the next scar he finds—small, circular, he suspects it to be a bullet graze. He lingers there for a while, holds Ash tighter when he feels his chest heave, fingers brushing over his chest.

They travel upward to—maybe a burn? The skin is tighter, angry. Every kiss, every touch, something Eiji gets angrier.

_How dare you, _he says to the garden of deities that shudder under his judgemental gaze, straying from his light. _How dare you try and take him away from me. How dare you try and kill this sunlit lionheart. _

Each time he presses a kiss, Eiji’s silently screaming _stay, stay, stay. _

Eventually, Ash’s back runs out of scars for his lips to caress, and Eiji shuffles around so he’s looking Ash in the eye. He presses a kiss to his cheek and asks, “May I?” With careful fingers patting his front.

Past the watery gaze that makes those jade eyes gleam, Ash manages a nod. Eiji gently pushes Ash back against the pillows, almost a nest made from this sparrow to keep his beautiful lionheart from falling. It’s funny—Eiji wonders if there are any stories about a flightless little sparrow traveling on metal wings to the plains of America, seeing a jaded lion in a field of golden rye and falling in love.

_“Eiji,” _Ash rasps as Eiji presses a kiss to the one scar on Ash’s abdomen. His legs are either side of Ash’s, gently dragging his mouth up and down the stab-wound that is still so fresh from healing fully. Eiji feels that gentle heart of Ash’s, bleeding heart—one that just wanted _love—_thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings.

The scars don’t just mark his skin. They run much, much deeper. Eiji knows this already.

_Stay, stay, stay._

Eiji moves his lips upward. Past the areas where the scars mark Ash’s chest and back, where there is no excuse to kiss. Featherlight, butterfly kisses, gentle presses of his plush mouth from that scar on his abdomen to where Ash’s heartbeat thrums, a soft song.

Ash’s hands grip Eiji’s back as Eiji moves toward Ash’s neck, giving pause.

“Can I?” Eiji asks again. Ash isn’t _tensing, _per se, but Eiji wants to give Ash a choice. Always wants to offer him a way out.

_Stay with me, _he begs inside. _Even just for a while. Tell me how long you’ll be here, so my heart can know the limit of how much time it has left to break. _

Ash doesn’t say anything, but he nods and clutches onto Eiji tighter. There are words he wants to say, Eiji theorizes, but not now. Not in this low light.

Now—Eiji isn’t an expert in anything. Not in pole-vaulting, not in photography, not even in love. But he is _in love, _and he knows how to approach Ash, so he isn’t scared. So, he presses a very soft kiss to Ash’s cheek and lets them trail down to Ash’s neck. Eiji’s hands brush back Ash’s hair, tuck behind his ears, before experimenting.

He doesn’t know Ash’s body very well like this, so he tests out a few light, teasing little sucks and nips across the entire surface of the skin. Ash is hot to the touch; Eiji can hear the way his breathing hitches over a few spots that he makes a mental checklist of later.

_“E-Eiji,” _Ash gasps. Clutches onto Eiji for purchase.

“Mm?” Eiji lifts his head to look at those beautiful eyes and—oh.

_Oh. _

Ash is panting, chest heaving and thick, and there’s a cute, cherry-colored blush dusting over his nose. He turns his head to the side, embarrassed, so Eiji catches his warm cheek in another chaste kiss.

“You want to stop?” Eiji tests, hand brushing Ash’s cheek.

Ash shakes his head firmly, blush going to his ears. “No,” though his voice wobbles. “I just—this feels—”

He’s struggling to find the words, Eiji realises.

There’s another thick swallow from Ash. “I feel—safe?”

_Oh, Ash. _

“Like—if I wanted—if I did say no, that—that’s okay?” Eiji nods at that, Ash’s eyes glassing over. “But it feels—I don’t know, it feels—good. This feels good. I didn’t… I didn’t know it could.”

Suddenly, Eiji feels like burning the entirety of New York to the ground. _How fucking **dare **you. _He screams into that garden._ Who were you to hurt him this way? If you ever try and put your filthy hands on him again, I will end you. Do you hear me? I will **end **you._

Eiji leans forward, pressing his lips to Ash’s in a sweet, lingering kiss. When he pulls back, Ash looks _starstruck. _

The words slip out of Eiji’s mouth before he has a chance to stop them. “You are so lovely.”

The effect it has on Ash is… not what Eiji expects. Ash stares at him with that starry-eyed gaze and _blushes. _Pursing his lips together, an almost boyish action, innocent. Eiji blinks down at him for a moment, and then—

_They must have told you all sorts of sordid things. Objectified you. _A wash of determination courses through his blood. _I will find words that describe you that will not hurt. I have two languages to do so. _

“You like me saying that?” Eiji leans down and kisses Ash’s cheek. “You are lovely, Ash.”

Ash purses his lips together to try and hide a happy whine, tossing his head to the side to conceal his smile. _Oh, you _are_ a lovely sight. _

Eiji finds more and more words flowing from his tongue like honey every kiss he presses to Ash’s neck. “You are a delight –” kiss, “a sunlit wonder –” kiss, with a little suck to punctuate it, “a-an _enchantment_–“ Eiji is breathless as he goes back to the sweet spot he found earlier and laves over it with his tongue and—

Oh, how Ash _gasps. _He feels Ash arch into him, sees those jade eyes widen in disbelief and jaw open. Blood rushes south in Eiji, but he ignores it to just marvel at Ash unwinding, stars in his eyes as he feels Ash’s beautiful heart still beating, here, skin hot to the touch.

_“Eiji—Eiji, I—_” Ash breathes shakily as Eiji nibbles at that spot with teeth and tongue, gripping onto Eiji and shaking with pleasure in his arms. There’s going to be a small mark, maybe a purple bruise, but Ash isn’t pushing him away—when Eiji tried, Ash tightened his arms. _“Eiji, please—” _

“きれいだよ.” Eiji murmurs against Ash’s throat, and—oh, how many spots were there again? Ash made so many beautiful noises. Eiji guesses maybe three more, several lighter sucks across Ash’s neck until he finds the next, at the base of his collarbone. “きれいだよ, Ash—”

Before Ash can respond to his words, there’s another delightful gasp—Ash is biting his lip and tightening his legs together, beautiful little mewls escaping Ash as Eiji brings his tongue around that delicious spot on Ash’s collarbone and litters it in kiss marks.

“Wh-where did this come from, Eiji?” Ash pants heavily, moaning gravel-deep when Eiji targets another sweet spot on his collarbone. “I’m not—not complaining, but Eiji, aren’t you a—”

“_A wonder,_” Eiji growls, Ash gripping at his sweaty back with a small whine. “You are a beautiful wonder.” Eiji then lifts his eyes. “Do you want me to stop?”

_“No,_” Ash blurts out, then realises how quickly he said it, and hides his face again.

Eiji’s mind is in a haze—he can hear the wet noises coming from his lips and tongue against Ash, can feel Ash’s growing arousal against his stomach. All he can think of is that Ash is the most sublime creature he’s ever seen, and—

Oh, wait. He’s going to say that. Eiji looks Ash in the eye. “You are the most sublime person I have ever seen. My favourite person.”

Ash gapes at him, words dying at the back of his throat. Eiji isn’t done. His tongue may know Americans very well, but it is Japanese before anything. (After all the exploring it has done on Ash’s neck, however, maybe he should go for dual citizenship.)

“あなたは わたしにとって たいせつな ひとです,” Eiji says, feelings spilling over dangerously as he’s reaching in, cupping Ash’s face and kissing his cheek, forehead, lips, chin, neck. “あなたが ずっとすきでした. ずっと いっしょに いたいよ.”

Something in Ash _snaps. _

One moment, Eiji is soothing the recent mark he’s made on Ash’s collarbone and the next—

Eiji finds himself face-to-face with Ash as the latter surges up, gripping at his hips and staring at Eiji with downright _wonder _in his expression. Evidence of mutual arousal brushes together and leaves Ash panting; Eiji stuttering over his words. There’s heat _everywhere_; Ash pulls Eiji closer and swallows his moans into his mouth, dirty and low. Eiji wraps his arms around Ash’s neck and presses up against him, and Eiji knows he’s lost to the sunlight of Aslan Jade Callenreese as there’s mutual grinding and—_fuck_.

Ash pulls back with heavy pants. “I—I don’t—” He takes a moment to compose himself, lips bruised and eyes blown wide-open. “Eiji, I don’t know if I can go further than this—”

“That is okay, my lovely Ash.” There’s another little noise from the back of Ash’s throat at _that_ name, something Eiji makes a mental note of for later. _He likes the sweetness. How fitting, for someone like Ash._ Eiji smooths Ash’s hair back and bunches it up, before kissing his forehead. “If this is all you can do, then it is all you can do.”

“It—” Ash flops his forehead on Eiji’s shoulder, places sweet kisses there. “It doesn’t mean I want to stop.”

“Oh?”

Ash makes a small noise again, holding Eiji closer. “I mean, if—if we do, ah, go over the edge, I don’t mind if this is… how we do it.” Ash curses, “fuck, that’s dumb. Shit, I’m sorry, you probably want more—I mean, if you want me to, I could—”

“Aslan. _Aslan._” Eiji laughs softly, pulling back so that Ash can look him in the eye. “Even if we didn’t do anything, I would be happy. The fact you are sharing this with me, _that _makes me happy. I just want you, in any way you wish to share with me.”

There’s no offense when Eiji sees Ash searching his expression. He just hopes the soft smile pointed at Ash is enough to convince him that he’s telling the truth.

“You’re serious.” Ash states.

“Yes.” Gently, Eiji takes Ash’s hand and presses a kiss to the back of it, on his ring finger. Ash purses his lips, embarrassed, leading to Eiji only doing it again with his other hand. “I am.”

There’s a complex expression on Ash’s face, right now. Eiji tries to study it like he would his own photographs; the lighting giving shape to a mix of wonder, greenery caught in lowlight, jade against velvet cityscapes. Ash, for every meaning of the word, is _lovely. _Blood may stain his past, scars may mark his body, but his soul is pure. Eiji knows it. He’s _seen _it.

“I think,” Ash says after a moment of contemplation, “I’d like to try.”

“You are sure?” Eiji brushes his fingers against that beautiful blush on Ash’s cheeks. “We do not have to. It is okay to say no.”

“I don’t want to go any further than what we were just doing,” Ash clarifies, but nods. “But I—I know. I know it’s okay. _You _make it okay.”

The next half hour went by in a blur. Eiji’s memories are a haze of Ash pressing against him as Eiji pushes Ash to lay down again; heated kisses and devoured moans. He notices Ash _really _likes his earlobe being nibbled on; Eiji, in turn, finds Ash loves to grip his thighs and haul him close.

At some point, teeth clack together in a particularly heated kiss, and they pause and laugh at the sudden mood-swerve; Ash takes that opportunity and rolls them over and holds Eiji’s hands, uses his mouth on Eiji’s neck.

“Ash—” Eiji gasps, staring at him wide-eyed, lips bruised and shiny. “_Aslan—_”

Ash is trembling below him again, his head thrown back and eyes wide, saying Eiji’s name like a prayer. Boxers are too constricting, too tight, but rutting up against Ash like this makes that discomfort somehow twist into even _more _heat, Ash won’t let go of Eiji’s hands and suddenly they both arch into each other, Ash moans _loudly, _Eiji is breathless at how beautiful he is—

_Oh. _

_I love you._

When Eiji’s mind has returned, Ash is still breathing shallowly underneath him, fingers tracing circles into Eiji’s back. He blinks heavily, inwardly grimacing at how sticky he is under his boxers now and sits up a little to look at Ash.

“Are you…” Eiji trails off, not sure how to finish that sentence.

“It was fun.” Ash murmurs, gazing up at the ceiling. “It’s never been fun before.”

Eiji is back at that garden of deities that won’t look him in the eye. _How dare you try and rip him from me. Do you not see the purity of his soul?_

“I had fun,” Eiji states, leaning over to kiss Ash’s cheek. “Because it was you.”

Ash seems to be deep in thought. “Do you think this counts?”

“For what?”

“My first time.”

Eiji feels like he’s been shot all over again. Now, he wants that garden of light to burn up in a fire. He’s already searching for the match. With glassy eyes and a twisting heart, Eiji shuffles closer to Ash and presses his forehead against his.

“It is my first,” Eiji grips Ash’s hand in his own, “so even if it would not count, I would share my first with you. But, yes. It counts. It is.”

There’s another beat of silence; Eiji is almost certain that Ash has fallen asleep and is about to slip out to clean himself up when Ash breaks the silence.

“You liked it when I grabbed your ass.”

Eiji splutters; indignant. “Excuse me?!”

Ash throws him a lazy smirk. “Earlier. You liked it. Come to think of it, I did back when you visited me in prison, too. Did you like it then? You did rush off to the bathroom. _Eiji._” He fakes a gasp and reaches up, ruffling Eiji’s hair. “Who would have thought you were such a pervert, Eiji Okumura?”

“I—I,” Eiji huffs, lips jutting out in a pout. “You are _horrible._”

Eiji squeaks when Ash playfully squeezes his rear, shooting up and _glaring… _until he smirks, and Ash looks a little uneasy at the sudden shift in mood.

“Perhaps I am,” Eiji leans down and kisses Ash on the forehead, “but can you blame me, for being in front of someone as lovely as you?”

That cherry-red blush returns on Ash’s face goes all the way down to his neck and up to his ears, and Eiji doesn’t even regret the comment even when he gets hit in the face with the pillow. All he can do is laugh until it echoes around the room; his neighbor banging on the wall and telling him to quieten down and—

_This is love. This has to be love in it’s purest form._

* * *

(“…Huh. Guess he’s not visiting tonight. Has he finally gone home?”)

* * *

Ash sees him again, with the bottle of brandy.

A blood-speckled letter remains in Eiji’s hands; Ash drops his book and rushes to Eiji’s side the moment he comes through the door.

“Eiji, whatever is going through your mind right now—”

Eiji laughs, laughs, _cries. _“You were stabbed because of _me—” _

“Stop.” Ash shakes his head and grips Eiji’s hands tighter. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare, Eiji.”

Guess he’s a disappointment then, because all Eiji can do is feel his mouth go dry, feel his heart ring in his ears, feel everything crash down and swallow him whole and, and—fuck, dammit, he can feel the tingles in his arms and legs and everything’s getting lucid and he’s drowning, he’s drowning and Kaori is asleep all the way in Izumo right now and he can’t wake her now, not now, not after everything he’s put her through, put Ash through even more pain and he almost died because of me offering him a way out—

“Can you hear me, Eiji?”

There’s a voice there but it’s hard to focus on and his brain is too messy, messing everything up and this is why you should have gone home, Kaori said it herself that when he loves he loves too recklessly, he loved pole vaulting and jumped so high he crashed and lost his father’s medical finance; loved Kaori so much it messed her up dealing with his American fallout; loved Shorter in such a small span of time it took him begging to be released from the hell of Banana Fish—

But Eiji nods. He shakes and trembles and can barely remember to breathe past his brain’s toxic thoughts, but he does. His breathing hitches and the itching on his neck is getting worse and worse, there’s probably a rash there maybe, he doesn’t know.

Ash presses Eiji’s hand to his heart. “Follow along with me, okay? Just breathe when I count.”

Eiji can’t look at him. The light feels like an explosion in his eyes.

But he breathes. He feels Ash’s heartbeat; hears Ash counting; sees nothing but inky blackness as he closes his eyes; smells Ash’s clothes (apples); tastes the air around him. He relays this to Ash when Ash begins to ask him softly; prodding questions, each one lacing him back into reality.

When he fully returns, Eiji is practically on Ash’s lap. Somehow, neither of them cares to point it out.

“You alright?” Ash murmurs, pressing a cheek to the top of Eiji’s head.

“Sorry,” he mumbles back, “this happens .”

Ash shakes his head. “Not the first time I’ve seen it. Take all the time you need.”

Slowly, Eiji begins to trace patterns into Ash’s arm, small swirls that could be Kanji if he squints hard enough. Thirteen strokes. One stroke on his wrist, the other by his elbow, another on his bicep. [愛.] Ash seems content enough to let him, his arms wound around Eiji’s waist.

You don’t get to apologise to me, you know.”

Eiji frowns, curling up tighter. “But—”

“Eiji,” Ash holds him closely, fiercely, lovingly. “Your letter gave me life. Without it, I probably would have given up.” Like Eiji had done earlier, Ash cups Eiji’s face and forces eye-contact. He’s not letting him shy away from the truth; Eiji demanded it, Ash is giving it to him, and he doesn’t break it. “The idea of seeing you again let me cling to life long enough to get help. Screamed out so loud Sing came running. So just… stop, okay?”

It sounds so beautifully simple when Ash demands it. To just stop the guilt. Yet, he cannot refuse Ash anything, can he? This beautiful lionheart.

Eiji says nothing, just leans into the feel of Ash’s hands, letting the warmth spread to his cheeks, ears, neck. Alive, he thinks, Ash is alive and with me. The time to deal with emotional fallouts will be later when life reminds them that existing is more than being wrapped up in each other’s arms and being grateful for the sunlight.

* * *

When Kaori was thirteen, Eiji was seventeen and days from wishing for the chance to break into the big leagues; a whisper of hours away from the worst day of his life. They’re both sitting at an old koi pond, devoid of fish and overrun with green pondweed, as Kaori writes something down for a nature project she has for school.

“I do not _understand _any of this.” Kaori moans, leaning back on her hands. “Why must I record this _every day?_”

“Education is important, Kaori.” She scowls at the familiar mantra Eiji repeats any time she complains. “You want to get into a good high school, yes?”

“I _want _to have my Saturdays free to play videogames.” She counters, crossing her legs and sulking. “You are lucky to be pole-vaulting. They excuse your absences when you have competitions.”

Eiji laughs, batting her on the shoulder. “I have to make up for that work.”

“Still.” She pouts.

She scribbles a few more notes down into her workbook, making her handwriting as cutesy as she can (small victories in annoying her teachers), before stuffing it all into her backpack the moment she’s finished. Eiji rewards her with a green apple he’s been saving, but she notices he’s making no effort to move.

“Eiji?” Kaori flicks his forehead. “Dummy, we can go home now. You do not have to supervise me.”

There’s an unusual hesitance to Eiji, the way he’s twiddling his thumbs and staring out at the decrepit old koi pond. Kaori pushes her backpack to the side and slowly sits back down, staring at her older brother with a hint of worry.

“Kaori,” Eiji begins, slowly. “You do not care what others think, right?”

She rests her chin on her hand. “Duh. I do not have time for people’s stupid opinions.”

The laugh that comes from Eiji is forced. She knows that much; now her dumb brother is worrying her. _Gross. _

“I just…” Eiji ducks his head. “_Kaa-san _keeps asking me about a girlfriend.”

“I _know,_” Kaori groans. “It is so annoying! She pries so much. Always asking me if I have a boyfriend.” Her voice does a cheap, high imitation of her mother’s. “_Oh, Kao-chan! Is there not a nice boy you wish to date from school? I would approve, I promise! Come, bring him home so I may feed him your awful natto!” _She sticks her tongue out. “I _hate _being called Kao-chan. I am not seven anymore.”

Eiji doesn’t respond to that. Kaori tries again. “I… I can try and tell her to stop? I do not know if you have a girlfriend, but I understand if it’s annoying—”

“I don’t.”

Kaori furrows her brows. “I do not understand—”

“Kaori, I do not think I will _ever _have a girlfriend.” Eiji isn’t looking at her anymore. He stares, fixated at the point. “Ever.”

It hasn’t quite clicked, yet. “But—you always said you wanted to get married.”

“I did,” Eiji tells her, quietly.

_Then how are you supposed to do that without a girlfriend? You want to get married, but no girlfriend? Are you jumping straight into it… oh?_

_Ohhh._

_OH?!_

“You are _gay_?!” Kaori screeches in shock.

Eiji _glares _at her. “Please, say it like I am something even more strange. I welcome it.”

“Wait, no! No, that is not—” Kaori flounders as Eiji’s glare turns to steel, but she sees the sweat beading on his brow. _Why am I the one you come to about this? I am supposed to tease you, not comfort you! _She panics, clenching her fists and grimacing. “It is not strange! Many people are, yes? Maybe—maybe not in Izumo, but—in big cities! There are gay people there, yes?”

Eiji softens, a little. “Maybe.”

Kaori feels herself going pale, thinking of _any _way to fix this. “I—I do not think it is strange!” She blurts out, red and ashamed at her earlier slip-up. “Eiji, it is normal! Well, maybe—maybe a little unusual for _Izumo, _but there are lots of gay people! You being one is not a bad thing.”

Eiji doesn’t say anything, continues to stare at the pond. Kaori takes a breath, tightens her shoulders, and puts a hand on his arm.

“Eiji.” She speaks, and _finally, _he looks at her again. “It is _not _a bad thing.”

“I know.” He mumbles.

Kaori, admittedly, is very out of her depth. She did not think the first gay person she would be meeting would be her own _brother. _She has read about this, about _coming out, _in some magazines and television drama shows that she watches. But this is too far removed from her own experience, so she just treats Eiji like Eiji.

“No, I do not think you do.” Eiji raises a brow at her. “Eiji, I am… thank you for telling me.” She struggles to find the words—the _right _words. “This is something difficult for you to say to me, yes? It is not a bad thing. This is just… a part of you, yes? And telling people helps you see it is just a part? And love is just love, yes? It makes you happy. That is fine.”

Eiji says nothing for a moment.

“I—” Kaori slumps. “I do not know what to say to make you feel well. Have I upset you?”

When Eiji puts a hand over hers, his gaze isn’t steel. It’s soft, vulnerable, yet his eyes shine _bright. _Kaori can’t help but tentatively smile back.

“You haven’t,” he promises her, smiling as bright as the sun. “Thank you, Kaori.”

* * *

They pick Kaori up at the train station at 10:30, four weeks into Ash coming to Japan. They still haven’t spoken about if he is going to stay here for good, or if the call of New York and its guilt-laden streets is where Ash feels he belongs. Eiji hasn’t said anything; Ash cannot bring himself too, and they’re trying to ignore the domestic routine that feels _right. _

“Alright, she should be around here somewhere.” Ash has an arm around Eiji’s waist; there are some curious looks, some giggling from a group of girls, but nothing Eiji isn’t used to handling. He just leans into it. “Look for the obnoxious spoiled brat with an overpriced coffee cup begging to be refilled.”

“Eiji.” Ash shakes his head and chuckles. “She’s a _smart _spoiled brat.”

“I hate that you are right. I—oh.” Eiji glances through the crowd. “_Kaori!”_

Pulling along a travel case, sneakers squeak against the pavement as Eiji sees a little typhoon in the form of _Kaori Okumura _begin to charge at them. She runs through the crowd and barely qualifies apologising for the way she rushes; Eiji rolls his eyes and opens his arms, Kaori _crashing _into him with a hug.

“Hello, you under-handed bastard!” She greets in English, pulling back and grinning. “I need more coffee! I ran out.”

“It is nice so to see you too, Kaori.” Eiji pushes her away and shakes his head. “Your English is getting better.”

“Yes, yes.” Kaori waves him off, positively brightening when she sees Ash. “Aslan!” She pushes away from Eiji and _leaps _at Ash; making the poor man stumble back at the sudden hug. He hesitantly returns it, squeezing Kaori a little as she bounces on her toes. “It is nice to see you again! Did you get the pictures? Has Eiji been treating you well?”

Eiji glares and crosses his arms. “Oh, so you greet _him _nicely.”

Kaori sticks her tongue out. “_Aslan _is nicer than you. You could learn something from him, _bitch. _At least _Aslan _answers my phone calls when I need advice!”

“I will not give you advice on using the vents to sneak out of school!” Eiji points his glare at Ash. “Which you should _not _have told her to do, by the way!”

Ash just grins and wraps an arm around Kaori. “Sorry, _Onii-chan. _Looks like I’m the new favourite.”

Kaori takes _one _look at Ash, and promptly takes a large step back. “Please, Aslan, _never _call Eiji that again. That is… very disturbing.”

Ash blinks. “What?”

“You called him _brother._” She shudders. “That is very odd to call someone you are dating.”

“D-Dating?” Eiji casts a panicked look to Ash; Ash returns it in kind. They’ve never exactly _defined _their relationship to each other. There’s love, there’s affection, but never a label. Eiji looks back to his sister, a little mortified. “Kaori, we—”

“Oh, I am not in the mood for side-stepping.” She pokes both Ash and Eiji’s necks. “I have plain evidence on your skin. Please, _wear scarves _next time. Aslan, I even gave you one.” She shakes her head and stuffs her hands into her pockets. “Eiji, carry my case. I need my coffee. Aslan, you are paying.”

Eiji’s hand slaps over his neck. Ash covers his marks with his coat. Both cannot look at each other.

“…She really is a brat, Eiji.” Ash remarks, getting out his wallet as Kaori goes on over to the nearest Starbucks.

Eiji picks up the case and sighs. “Welcome to my _life, _Ash.”

* * *

There are little pieces of Aslan all over Eiji’s apartment now, Kaori notices as she’s taking a sip of her custom coffee order. Perhaps not noticeable to the normal wandering eye, but Eiji is her _brother. _She knows him as clockwork does time.

There are extra shirts in the laundry basket, far too big and modern to be Eiji’s. An extra coat hung in the doorway. Shoes piled on top of each other. More photographs stuck on the corners of frames not-yet filled, as if desperate to prove they are there. There’s a dip on the couch where there wasn’t before; big enough for two people if curled up tightly.

Aslan has made his place here, in this small Tokyo apartment with Eiji.

“Kaori?” Aslan calls out from the kitchen—Eiji had popped out back to the university, so it is just the two of them for now. “Are you hungry? I’m making something for Eiji, so you can’t complain I didn’t offer.”

Throwing herself off the couch, Kaori leans against the entryway to the kitchen and smirks. “Have you finally mastered the miso soup?”

Aslan waves a small kitchen knife. “He ate it all.”

“Such a diligent househusband.”

There’s a small blush on his cheeks, but he doesn’t retort. “Are you hungry? I won’t ask again, brat.”

“I would like natto.”

If looks could kill, that knife wouldn’t be needed to cut Kaori in half. “No.”

“Why not?” Kaori jumps up and grins, trying to look Aslan in the eye as he avoids it. “You do not like natto? Not at all? But it is Eiji’s _favourite! _You are not depriving my dear brother of his favourite dish, are you?”

“Eiji can get natto whenever he wants. I just don’t cook it. Plus, doesn’t it take fucking ages?”

She waves a hand to dismiss him and grins at him wider. “Yet, just imagine it, Aslan. You do not like natto, and Eiji knows this. He is tired from University one day, so very hungry…” She gestures to the table. “And there! Fresh natto and spring onions and soy sauce, all made by you despite your hatred! You would go _that _far for him! Imagine how grateful he would be!”

For a moment, she’s got him. He’s considering it. There’s even a _dreamy _look in his eyes… and just like that, the magic is gone when Aslan bonks her on the head with a wooden spoon he’s been holding. “We’re having Irish stew. If you want natto, go fucking buy it.”

“Irish stew?” Kaori abandons her earlier teasing from genuine interest. “I have never had that.”

“Wanna try some? I’m just cutting parsley to serve it with.” Aslan points to a slow cooker by the microwave, handing her a small spoon. “Feel free to it.”

So, she does. She takes the spoon from Aslan’s hand and helps herself to a hearty portion… and her eyes widen. “This is _good!” _Kaori beams at Aslan, grinning from ear-to-ear. “We are having this tonight, right? I want more!”

“When Eiji gets back.” He conditions, shaking his head. “So spoiled, you are.”

“I am just relieved you can _cook._” Kaori takes another spoonful and smiles at the taste. “Is this something they eat a lot of in New York?”

“I don’t know.” Aslan dices up the parsley and yanks her away from the slow cooker, ignoring the way she pouts. “My Dad used to make it. Said we have Irish roots.”

“Your father?”

“Mm.”

The way Aslan responds makes it known that he doesn’t want to approach it. From what Eiji said about Aslan, he doesn’t have much family to speak of. Or, maybe the family he does have around isn’t worth speaking about. Either way, it’s not her business.

“Did Eiji tell you our father is sick?”

Aslan nods. “Kidney failure?”

“Something like that.” Kaori turns on her heels and leans against the countertop. The clock ticks loud in the background, knocking at her skull. “He had to return for another check-up. I am not sure I told you this but being at home is not very nice right now. A lot of, ah…” She snaps her fingers. “What is it when both people hide how they feel, and others know it?”

“Tension?”

“Yes. Much tension.” Kaori grips the counter and groans. “I hate it.”

Aslan stops chopping the parsley, awkwardly patting her shoulder. “Is that why you’re visiting?”

“Kind of.” She glances at Aslan through her choppy bangs. “Everyone went through a lot of pain when Eiji came home. He was so scared and sad for so long. It is nice to see something good from America come back to his life.”

Aslan’s gaze turns fond. Yet, despite it, guilt twists his expression into something ugly.

Kaori doesn’t like that look on his face.

* * *

Eiji comes home like a storm cracking through a tree; everything’s tumbling down and his voice is raised as he talks on the phone, fast. Kaori lifts her head up from the card game she has been playing with Aslan the moment the door slams; she jumps, Aslan instantly stands up and puts an arm out in front of her.

When Eiji’s voice fills the room, relief follows for an instant, then concern. She shares a look with Aslan.

_“…and what right do you have to judge me for this? You tell me I have no authority to speak of love, yet it is you who went behind Tou-san’s back! For months!” _

Kaori tenses at Eiji’s rapid-fire Japanese, Aslan puts a hand on her shoulder. _“You do not get to question me when you betrayed that!”_

Eiji’s angrily kicking off his shoes and taking off his coat, more muffled static comes from her mother at the other end of the line.

“Over and done with? Kaori is here for the weekend because you are _drowning _her in the marital problems that you and Tou-san cannot be bothered to communicate over! Is it any wonder—no, _don’t you dare _use my injury as a reason to regard you as a good example of judgment. I know what I am doing.”

Kaori notices that Aslan tenses _violently _at that. Something in his jade eyes flashes; goes darker. _He got hurt trying to help me. _That was what Aslan said.

Kaori’s eyes widen.

Eiji spits out the next word like its bitter candy. “Enough, _Kagura. _I won’t hear this anymore. I knew you would be like this when I admitted who I am. You can go about your life; I shall go about mine. The one thing you will not do is stop Kaori from seeing me. I hope the neighbor’s bed is warm enough for you tonight.”

Eiji hangs up the phone, tosses it across the room and swears.

The tension she had been trying to escape engulfs Kaori whole; she’s drowning in her parent’s marital problems, burning up in whatever Aslan is holding back, and she just wants to curl in on herself.

_Please, _she begs, _just speak to each other. _

Kaori isn’t sure who she is asking, anymore.

* * *

Dinner is quiet.

Kaori goes to bed as soon as her plate is cleared.

Aslan was quiet the entire night, Eiji no better.

* * *

Whatever has been building between Aslan and Eiji the weeks she has not been there, shatters like glass in the early hours of the next morning. Kaori huddles next to the door like she’s thirteen again, listening to Ash and Eiji’s hushed, guilt-laden voices. They’re so wrapped up in each other that they fail to notice anyone else; even when fighting, their entire worlds are each other.

“…why are you just telling me this _now? _Did you really want to keep me in the dark until you left for the airport?”

“Eiji, I wasn’t—I was only looking. I heard what you were saying to your mother, okay? I don’t want to be the cause of you two fighting—”

“That was a long time coming. She has always been traditional.” Eiji scoffs, folding his arms. “Ash, I do not care if you want to leave, if you are not happy here I will not stop you—but I can not—I cannot take you hiding it from me!”

Kaori huddles in on herself further, biting her lip. _Dummy, what are you saying? Tell him how you feel! You want him to stay! Even I can see that. _

“If you don’t care that I’m leaving, then why am I even here?”

_Aslan, you idiot!_

Eiji’s stuttered gasp almost makes Kaori come out, but his voice stops her. “I am not _stopping _you from going. You are the one bringing up my hopes, every day that…” There’s a small sob from Eiji now. “If you want to leave, why do you linger?”

“Eiji, no that’s not—” Aslan’s breath shallows. “Fuck, I can’t do this right now, I can’t—I just need some space, okay? I’ll be back in a bit.”

“…I won’t stop you.”

The double-meaning in that sentence doesn’t bypass Kaori, the guilt seems to seep into Ash as he lets out a pained, stuttered gasp. When a few minutes have passed, Kaori comes out of her room to Eiji, sat on the couch with his head in his hands. She walks over to him and leans her head on his shoulder.

“I want him to stay.” He rasps. “I don’t want him to go.”

“Have you told him that?”

Eiji shakes his head. “He’d stay out of obligation. He’s had enough choices ripped from him.”

“You can want things too, Eiji. Perhaps Aslan thinks you do not want him enough to ask.”

Another, small sob comes out of Eiji’s throat, a painful little hiccup. It almost reminds her of when Eiji was smaller, maybe nine, scraping his knee and having nobody but his five-year-old sister to lean on to grab _Hello Kitty _plasters for it. Kaori puts an arm around his shoulder and sighs.

“Let me have a shower and get dressed.” He looks up at her, confused. “I will bring him back.”

* * *

(“Go home, Ash.”

_Fuck off._

“You’re the one who keeps coming back here. Ash, why do you keep running away from home?”

_Because Golzine won’t let me have any peace. Because Foxx doesn’t leave my fucking head. All I do is cause Eiji pain. I don’t deserve to stop. I don’t deserve to stay in Japan, a life away from guns and gangs. I should have died in that library. I should have let Eiji move on._

“Ash.”

_You’re not real. _

_“_Aslan.”

_Don’t say my name._

“I’m as real as the pain you feel. I’m as real as the bullet you shot to spare me.”

_You’re not fucking real. None of this is real._

“Then why do you keep coming back?”

_I don’t know. I’m scared, Shorter._

“Ash, Ash—_go home, Ash. _Let yourself go home. He’s waiting for you, don’t you see?”)

* * *

_“…Why didn’t they spare you, Shorter? I’m always the one running away from people who gave a shit. You never ran when it counted. You were the good one.”_

* * *

“When Eiji said you were predictable, I thought he was exaggerating. Yet, here you are, sulking. Can you even read that book? Your Japanese is terrible.”

The boy who has her brother’s heart in his hands flinches _violently, _slowly dragging his gaze away from the book to look up at her. Kaori knows she must not be a pleasant sight; her pointed glare and folded arms as she stares down at him is hardly _intimidating, _but she is of the same blood as the boy he adores so much, and that boy is her _brother. _

Aslan’s fingers tighten on the book, glasses reflecting a white strip of light over those jade eyes. “I just needed some space.” He says to her, voice caught on a squeaky note.

Pulling out a chair opposite, Kaori settles and puts her hands together. “Eiji knows, and he respects that. That does not mean I am going to give it to you when my brother’s heart is breaking.”

Aslan takes off his glasses and massaged his temples—or is he hiding his eyes? —and shakes his head. “Fuck, this is why I shouldn’t have come here—I’m sorry.” He shakes his head more and more until Kaori realises his shoulders are trembling.

Now, Kaori isn’t a particularly sentimental teenager. She’s bratty, brash, and more spontaneous than her parents would like to admit. She’s not particularly studious, well-organized, or even that committed to anything beyond her social media feed or snarky humour.

But the one thing that will always have her full attention and dedication is her family, is Eiji. She keeps quiet when her mother quietly breaks down over her father’s illness and seeks company in the arms of her neighbor; she washes her father’s hair when he is too sick to reach; she destroys her own emotions trying to help her brother through his American fallout.

Aslan is crying in front of her, now. Eiji once said to her that he doesn’t show emotions easily.

Kaori reaches across the table and takes his hand in hers.

“I told you back on the train, did I not?” Kaori says to Aslan, voice as soft as she can make it. “I am not looking for someone to blame. Just tell me _why _you keep wanting to leave my brother.”

Aslan’s head shoots up, a few tears falling onto the book he’s half-way abandoned, eyes drifting to the soft hands encompassing his. He’s used to it with Eiji, touches of affection, but seems unsure of how to handle it from other people.

_Too bad, _she thinks, _because my brother loves you, and I am here for you whether you like it or not. _

Aslan swallows something thick in his throat and wipes his eyes. “I don’t want to leave him. I never want to leave him.”

“I know,” she whispers softly. “You love him too much.”

His eyes go glassy; she understands, gives him time to speak. “It’s just—” Aslan bows his head, and Kaori can only wonder about the racing thoughts in his mind. He is twinned in Eiji’s broken heart, but Kaori wonders how much of his mind has suffered too. “Every single time I think that it’s okay to stay, that I can get used to it—to being safe? I just think back to seeing your brother in that hospital bed. He got shot trying to protect _me, _Kaori.”

Kaori’s breathing stutters; she does not say anything, she just holds his hand tighter. Eiji never told her this. Never said he risked everything to keep Ash safe.

_I don’t blame you. You know that, right? _She hopes he understands.

Aslan never grips her hand back, but doesn’t pull away, either. Kaori sees that as a victory.

“And—y’know, I can deal with the guilt. I can push through that shit. You learn it, with the shit that I’ve been involved in. But _living?_” Aslan shakes his head. “Kaori, I don’t know how to do that. Eiji makes me want to—to live for something. But, fuck, he deserves so much better. Something stable. He shouldn’t have to _fix _me.”

Kaori thinks back to her brother, the wilting man who came back from America after Aslan had supposedly passed on. She thinks of the arguments, the fierce protectiveness Eiji had for Aslan’s name, the photographs he would cry over in the middle of the night. She thinks to the English phone calls, how often _Ash _would pop up, repeatedly, coupled with _love _and _lonely, _how those words describe Aslan so, so well.

She sees the boy in front of her, two years older than her, the way he cries. The way he doubts, the way he hesitates, and she thinks to his kindness, his tolerance in her dragging him to Tokyo to test that love for her brother. For Eiji.

“Aslan,” Kaori squeezes his hands. “You can heal with Eiji by your side. That is allowed. That is possible for you. But your indecision is hurting Eiji.”

Aslan flinches.

“Eiji is reckless in love, but also undeniable selfless to the point of hurting himself.” Kaori leans forward to look Aslan in the eye. “I know my brother. He loves so much; he will hurt himself in the pursuit of it. He will stay still and silent, waiting for you to catch up. Forever, if need be. So, let me ask you this.”

She tears her hands away from his and puts them on his shoulders, forcing him to look her right in the eye. His glasses slip off, and she asks him with a hardened voice, “when did you become such a coward in loving my brother? You, who flew all the way from America to see if he was alright?”

“I—”

Kaori shakes her head. “Is Eiji _worth _the pain of healing?”

His fingers tremble. “Always.”

“Then if there is any pain that comes along with staying, be an adult and learn to _deal with it as it comes. _Adapt to it. Learn. Stop hurting yourselves by threatening to run away all the time.” Kaori leans across the table and hugs him tight, fierce—it’s the hugs she gives to Eiji, but different. This one is for Aslan, and she won’t let him go.

“Don’t you know you don’t have to run away here, _Aniki?_”

Aslan’s breathing stutters, stops; and slowly, he’s hugging her back, the table digs into her hips, but she doesn’t care. Aslan grips onto her like she’s just given him sage advice.

“Okay.” He whispers. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Kaori pulls back and pulls out a tissue from her pocket, handing it to him.

Aslan blows his nose, red-eyed and flushed, but nods at her with a hesitant smile. It’s enough that Kaori can return it confidently. “Yeah. You’re right.” He bunches up the tissue and tosses it in a nearby bin. “Can’t promise I won’t fuck up anymore, but—”

“Hush. Today is for positives.”

He laughs, a genuine little one, and nods. “Alright, alright. You win.”

“You want to go and see Eiji?”

“Yeah.”

It takes a few more moments of wiping his eyes and composing himself, but Aslan pulls out his chair and stands, putting the book back from the shelf it came from, joining Kaori at the door. His scarf is a little haphazardly put on—the same one that she loaned him a while back, Kaori notices—and they start to walk in amicable silence.

Tokyo is awash with light, the street traffic quietening down a bit, but Kaori notices it’s sad how much of it is simply powering corporate advertisements. With all this light saturating the city, Kaori begs her mind to paint a picture of Tokyo without electric, under a canopy of falling stars instead. Would the sky look like fireflies have taken over airplanes?

“Kaori,” Aslan breaks the silence suddenly, and Kaori looks over at him. “What was that name you called me, earlier?”

“Eh?”

“You called me, ah…” Aslan snaps his fingers, trying to recall the title. “_Niki? _I think?”

“Oh. _Aniki?”_

Aslan’s eyes brighten with recognition, and he nods. “Yeah, that was it. What does it mean? I’ve not heard that one before.”

She hums to herself, hands in her pockets as she tries to fight the cold encroaching on her. “Mm… there are several meanings for it, depending on the context of using it. None of my intentions for using it for you are bad, before you worry.”

The walk slows a little, as Aslan looks at her expectantly, blinking slowly. A part of her does want to just tell him to Google it as she had done for his name before they had met, but with the day he has had… she doesn’t have the heart to turn down his question.

The snowfall begins gently, Kaori smiling to herself. “To put it simply, _Aniki _is a very informal word used by boys or… oh, what is the term? Boyish girls?”

“Tomboys?”

“Yes, that is the one. It is a term for tomboyish girls, or boys, for someone they consider an older brother to them. I think it used to be used in gangs back in the 1980s, and I found it fitting considering how you met Eiji. I hope that is not offensive to you. Though you do always call me a brat, so I believe this one is owed…” She trails off as soon as she realises she’s alone. “Aniki?”

Giving pause, Kaori turns on her heel and notices Aslan staring at her with wide eyes, gentle snow settling on his shoulders.

“You…” He licks his lips, swallowing. “You called me your _brother_?” He asks, shock seeping into his tone.

Kaori frowns at him as Aslan has just asked her if _2 + 2 equals 4_. What is with Americans and asking questions that have obvious answers? Or maybe this is just an _Aslan _trait. _What an odd, dumb brother he is._ “Yes? Do you not want to be?”

Aslan simply shakes his head. Whatever shock he has remained in his mind, he seems to push it down, walking beside her with lips tightly shut. Kaori assumes he’s thinking hard about something. 

“Did you know I have an older brother?”

“I did not.” Kaori can gage from his tone it isn’t a happy story. “What is his name?”

“Griffin.”

“Like the legendary creature from Harry Potter?” Kaori smiles. “Aslan the lion, Griffin the bird-lion.”

“Mm.” Aslan twists his hands in his pockets. Ash remembers those Harry Potter books. Griffin read him the first three, and then he was spirited away to war. “He, uh, passed away. A few years ago, now. Not long after I met Eiji, actually.” He chances a glance at her, seeming a little bashful. Maybe nervous. “Do you want to see a picture of him?”

“Yes.”

He passes her a faded, worn photograph that he was keeping in one of his inside pockets, presumably next to the photograph she gave to him of Eiji. She sees a little Aslan sat on the lap of a teenaged boy—perhaps only a few years younger than her—with a smile brighter than she has ever seen on anyone. This boy looks at little Aslan like he’s the answer that his life was never even seeking.

Her finger traces over that smile. “He seems… like he was a kind person.” She deduces, handing it back to him.

“He really was. I hope he knew that.” Aslan lets out a breath, putting the photograph back into his pocket. “He wasn’t himself after he came back from active combat. I had to pay someone to care for him, then… he was gone.”

“I am sure he was grateful for you, Aslan.” She puts a hand on his arm. “He must be very proud of you, wherever he is.”

“Yeah.” Aslan glances away. “I hope so, too. So, well, if you really… want me to be like a brother to you, I do have a good example of it. Just proving that to you.”

_Oh._

It occurs to Kaori, just now, that Aslan is much like a little lion cub inheriting a pride. That he feels he must prove himself worthy of love, of affection, of family. Eiji told her that he was the leader of his gang of street kids back in the back alleys of New York City, but here in Japan, he is a virtual stranger. Eiji is the leader of normality, and the only bond he has aside from his love is—with her.

Kaori laughs, shaking her head. “Stupid Aniki,” she chides, going on her toes and poking his forehead. “You _are _my brother. Leading by a good example or not, I already accept you for who you are. Do not prove yourself to me. Just _be._”

There’s no shock across his face this time. Just a smile that dares to believe this is the reality. Aslan looks at her the same way Eiji looks at her; a little sister that annoys the fuck out of him, yet treasures her, nonetheless. It makes her heart swell up, and she hopes he returns the feeling in kind.

_Family, _she thinks, _you are family, so please believe it. _

“Just be.” Aslan’s grin goes a little crooked, a little boyish, wrapping an arm around his little sister’s shoulders. “I think I can do that.”

* * *

As they’re walking through the main center back toward the apartment, however, something catches Aslan’s eyes, like a beacon. She hadn’t really been paying attention to him, more preoccupied with texting Eiji that they were on their way back to him, but when he suddenly stops again, she’s intrigued.

“Aniki?”

“Kaori,” he starts, voice barely above a whisper. His eyes are transfixed on a store a little way from them, jade eyes lighting up like the gemstones they are. “Eiji’s been selfless in not pressuring me to stay, right? Do you think he’d appreciate it if I show him I’m not going anywhere again?”

Kaori’s eyes flit from Aslan’s face, to where he’s staring, and her mouth gapes. “Wait, are you going to—are you _serious?”_

“Yeah,” he breathes, exhilarated. “I don’t think I’ve been more serious in my life.” He turns to her, nervous and shy and breathless and, oh, _this _is a man truly in love. “Will you help me out? Please? Don’t try and talk me out of this. Please.”

_As if I would want to. _Kaori links her arm in his, smiling so wide her cheeks are hurting. “You really are like a little happy puppy. Oh!” She gasps. “I can see the little tail! _Wag, wag!”_

“You are _such _a brat—!” Aslan laughs as he pushes his way into the store and pulling her along, and the possibilities of dreams bleeding into reality come full circle.

* * *

(“Time to go home, Ash.”

_Yeah. I know._)

* * *

**香** ** Kaori [18:22]  
** _We will be back soon. We wanted to do a bit of shopping.  
And I wanted strawberry bread.  
Do not be overdramatic. You are not American._

Eiji stares at the last text Kaori sent him, narrowing his eyes like he’s expecting the pixels to form his brat of a sister and his _stupid _Ash to come through the door. He sighs and leans his head against the couch, an arm covering his eyes and dropping his phone onto his lap.

_Yes, _he said he would give Ash space. But that doesn’t mean he likes it when he goes off, randomly to walk for hours to clear his head. Communication is hard in any relationship (if you could even call the magnitude of what he and Ash share that—it’s more, _so _much more), but with Ash, it’s a gentle, coaxing thing.

Eiji never knows what Ash is thinking, except in the moments where he can read him like a book, opening up to Eiji and then closing back in on himself. God does Ash frustrate him so much. He _loves _him so much. It’s a package deal.

“Fuck—” Eiji nearly jumps when he hears Ash open the door. “When did it get so cold?”

“Perhaps if you were not so _indecisive, _we would have been back earlier.”

Ash scowls at her as he hangs up his coat. “You are such a brat. Go indulge in your crappy coffee, you spoiled hamster.”

Kaori holds up her to-go cup of pumpkin spice and grins at him, sauntering past her brother. “I told you I would bring him back.” She says with a smirk, patting him on the shoulder. “_Aniki! _Do not chicken out! You made me a promise!”

_When did she start calling him that? _Eiji wonders, furrowing his brows. _And she is picking up more Americanisms than I did whilst living there. And she calls me Americanised. Hypocritical brat. _He watches as Kaori skips off into his small kitchen, no doubt to add even more sugar to that coffee that permeates the air.

“You should not spoil her, Ash.” He scolds, but there’s a light-heartedness to it.

“Not my fault. She calls me _brother _now.” Ash scoffs, hanging up his scarf and taking off his shoes. “That little brat, she had to know that’d get to me.”

Eiji leans against the wall, hair coming loose out of his messy ponytail. He cocks his head to the side and grins. “You _like_ it.”

“Shut up.”

Eiji lets the teasing fall to the wayside as he touches Ash’s shoulder. “How are you? I am sorry I yelled before. I should have—”

“Eiji, you’ve got the patience of a fucking saint.” Ash takes Eiji’s hand off his shoulder, instead of linking their fingers together. Eiji is surprised but says nothing as he watches Ash. He’s a little nervous, Eiji realizes. “But you shouldn’t have to. I know you want me to stay, and I’ve been jerking you back-and-forth with how stupid I’ve been about this. I want to stay. I’m _going _to stay. I might be difficult in the future because of my own head, but as Kaori said, I need to grow the fuck up and learn to adapt. I can’t keep running away from what I want. It’s not fair to—to us.”

He sighs and presses his forehead to Eiji’s, who’s eyes are already starting to sting. “I’m so, _so_ sorry I hurt you. You never deserved it. I should have realised what my indecision was doing to you.”

“Ash, you—” And Eiji _wants _to say that Ash is being stupid, that he never hurt him, but—

But he’d be wrong to do that. Ash has been hurting him. Try as he might, Eiji has wants and needs, too. He can’t always be patient, always good, always understanding. Ash is apologising. Eiji isn’t going to treat him like he’s spun glass.

He’s just Ash. His Aslan. A lionheart.

“Yeah?” Ash murmurs, so close that Eiji can feel his breath ghost his lips. Eiji shudders.

“Nothing, really.” Eiji looks up at him, eyes half-lidded and smiles dazedly. “I’m just… happy that this is getting resolved now. I am happy you are staying with me.”

It’s at this, that Ash suddenly pulls back. It feels like Eiji’s been shot all over again, the way he watches as Ash backpedals, takes a step away from him. “Ash, are you—”

“Ask me to make it up to you.” He blurts out, hands twisting in his hoodie pockets and almost pleading with his eyes. “Ask me how I can prove I’m staying for good.”

Eiji frowns. “Ash, you do not _owe _me anything.”

“Eiji,” Ash says, voice balancing on a high, strained octave. “_Ask_ me.”

Eiji eyes Ash curiously, trying to spy for something to indicate this sudden shift in demeanor, but shrugs it off once he finds nothing. “Alright,” he says with an amused sigh, folding his arms. “Ash, how can you make up this indecisive behaviour to me? How can I know you are staying for good? Though you do not have to. I know you mean it. I trust you.”

_I love you. I love you with all my heart._

Ash swallows, _hard. _His face pales, but a dark red blush dusts his nose. Eiji is vaguely aware of Kaori hovering from the kitchen, seeing her give Ash a thumbs up in the reflection of the window, and he frowns at the sudden, _weird _tension.

“Ash, what is going on?” He flits his gaze between Ash’s face and Kaori’s reflection. “Kaori?” The Brat just grins wider, hands-on her phone like it’s a gun waiting to trigger. “Ash, what—”

Eiji’s breath lodges in his throat.

Ash isn’t standing in front of him anymore. He’s on one knee. He’s holding a ring box. There’s a golden ring in the box.

Kaori’s fucking having the time of her life.

_This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. _

“A-Ash—” He croaks.

Ash swallows hard again. Eiji can see how much Ash is shaking by the way the ring trembles in his hands and Eiji can feel his own knees start to buckle from the weight of reality hitting him. As much as this can’t be real, it _is. _

“I’m staying with you forever. No matter what.” Ash holds it up higher. “I know this isn’t how you do it in Japan, I know it’s not _legal_ here, I know this is too fucking fast, maybe I should have waited until we've been _dating _for more than a month, but after everything that's happened to us, I—I don’t want to wait anymore, I don’t want _you _to wait for that happy ending anymore, and if your soul is always with me, I want us to be as normal as we can make it. I couldn’t think of anything else to show that I also—that my soul is always with you, too. I love you, Eiji.”

His words are like a sudden rush of wind, and Eiji is breathless in the rush of one _Aslan Jade Callenreese_.

“Marry me, Eiji?” He says, voice quiet and shy. "Stay by my side forever?"

Ash is right. technically. They don’t typically propose like this in Japan. But nothing about the reality of _Ash _being here with him in Japan is _typical. _Nothing about this is expected. He and Ash are patchwork American and Japan mixed into one, bleeding into each other and declaring their love in crimson sunlight.

In another world, Ash would have died trying to reach Eiji, and Eiji would have mourned for him in New York, in a garden of sunlight eclipsed, a life void of Ash.

But this isn’t that world. His world, right now, is only Ash. Aslan. _His _lionheart. Eiji drops to his knees, bypasses the ring entirely, and holds Ash fierce. He runs his hands through Ash’s beautiful sunlit hair, hands trailing down his scar-covered back that always shielded him from enemy fire, and all he feels is a gentle warmth. Outside, the snow continues to fall in Tokyo.

“I do not have a ring to give you.” Eiji chokes. “This is not fair, Ash.”

Ash continues to shake in his arms. “Does that mean—”

“_Yes.” _Eiji pulls back and laughs, certain that Kaori is recording this moment for later, and absolutely _positive _that those are tears running down his face. “What is with you and asking questions with obvious answers?”

“Forgive me for being fucking terrified! I didn’t know what I’d do if you said—”

Eiji shuts down a pouting, complaining Ash with a brief, chaste kiss. When he pulls away, Ash is still dazed, flushed, blinking fast as he comes back to reality. “I would never turn you away.” He murmurs, pressing his forehead to his. “As if I could.”

There’s a breath that Ash has been holding, and it turns into a joyous laugh. He gently takes Eiji’s hand in his, slides the simple gold band onto his ring finger. He presses a kiss to it like it is a weighted treasure, and Eiji uses that same hand to brush his fingers against that beautiful blush that still rests on Ash’s cheeks.

“I love you.” Eiji leans forward and hugs Ash again, feels Ash’s fingers tangle in his hair. “My soul is yours. Forever.”

“Forever,” Ash repeats, leaning in for another kiss. “I like the sound of that.”

* * *

(In a field of golden rye that sways in the wind, a Chinese-American man with a brilliant purple mohawk stands, facing the sunset that never truly sets. A sea breeze tousles his hair, whistling through a bullet hole that saved his existence, and he smiles as he turns to the new face standing next to him.

“He hasn’t visited me in a while, you know. I think he’s finally getting it.” Shorter puts his hands in his pockets, his shades hanging by the collar of his shirt. “Has he finally gone home?”

“Yeah.” Kaori rubs her arms and smiles. “I did not think we’d be meeting like this.”

“Nice to meet you, then. I’ve heard you’re a bit of a brat.”

Kaori hits his arm and grins. “And I have heard you are a show-off.”

“Maybe a bit.”

Kaori looks over at the swaying rye, at the doors that lie in wait at several points in the field. Each one is different; some are glass, others are mirrors, one is an old oaken frame. Gold hits Shorter’s eyes, catching them like onyx would sunlight as he stares at them. Beyond those doors, Kaori knows, are many universes. A pocket of possibilities, and Shorter waits at the crossroads. He cannot come back with her to this one, she knows this. He has no physical body to return to, though she wants to. Oh, how she _wishes _she could bring him home to Eiji and Ash.

There is something she can do for him, though. It took much to seek him out, in this world of dreams, to leave Shorter with nothing.

“He is happy.” She tells him. “They’re getting married soon.”

Shorter twists his hand around his ring finger. “They deserve it.” He glances at her. “And Eiji?”

“Overjoyed. He is alive and well.” Kaori puts a hand on Shorter’s arm. A somber smile on her face. “I wish you could be there with them, but they remember you fondly.”

Shorter blinks fast, covering his eyes. “Griff and Skip left a while ago. They already accepted everything. I guess I just… I needed to hear that from you.”

Kaori smiles and takes his hand, holding it tight. “You _saved_ them. You _gave_ them this future. They will never forget what you gave to them.” She pauses, then adds, “I will always be thankful to you as well, Shorter.”

One of the doors suddenly flings open, revealing a star-studded pathway. It’s nothing but shadows to Kaori, a place in which she is not destined to enter, but she can feel the hesitation that restrains Shorter as he looks longingly at it. To him, she knows this is a universe he can now enter, past these endless fields of golden rye.

“You told Ash to go home, didn’t you? Over and over, he would drown himself in your memories, as would Eiji, but they are moving on with their lives here.” Kaori whispers, holding his hand tighter, lacing their fingers together. “You will see them again, Shorter Wong. Not in the same life as you had before, but you will.”

“I just—” Shorter glances at her, brows furrowing. “I’ve been here for so long, waiting, _wondering_—”

“And they will be waiting for you, in whatever form your relationships take, wherever you end up next." Kaori looks at him, sadly, and smiles. "I cannot come here again to tell you how they are. You know this.”

“Yeah,” he breathes sadly, “I know.” Shorter pauses, before looking at her. “Will I see _you_ again?”

Kaori blinks, surprised. “Oh?”

“I never knew you in the last life. I’d like to in the next one.”

Kaori muses it over. “Maybe not in the same way that we could have in my current world, but I feel like we could meet. If things were different.” Her brow quirks and she can’t help but grin up at him. “Maybe you will even fall in love with _me _this time.”

He snorts. “Not likely. Eiji would kill me.”

The open door begins to whisper, the wind pulling Shorter towards it. There are a thousand unheard languages that Kaori cannot understand, things in that universe she is not meant to hear, but she knows one thing: it is Shorter Wong’s next chance. Others will fall, bleed in the sunlight, cry out in the dark of the night. But for him, this will be salvation for the story that ended too soon. She’s confident in that.

“Go on,” she says with a smile, and let’s go of his hand. “It is your time, now.”

Shorter pauses, for a moment, and hands her his sunglasses. “I’m not gonna need this where I’m going.” She takes them and holds them close to her. “…Let them know I love them, okay? That’ll never die.”

“Their souls will always be with you, Shorter Wong.”

Kaori presses a kiss to his shades, as the image of Shorter Wong gets more and more distorted. He gives up his humanity and becomes stardust, shining so brightly it’d blind her to keep looking, burning and burning into her eyelids, but it is too beautiful to look away and—

The door closes. The golden rye stops swaying, sunlight burns into her eyes, and Kaori wakes up with a gasp.)

* * *

Several photographs line the walls.

Kaori’s high-school graduation, hiding her tears behind a pair of black shades. Their father’s release from the hospital. Nadia and Charlie’s sonogram. Sing by the ocean. Cain by Skip’s tombstone. Max and Jessica and Michael at a fairground.

Aslan Jade Callenreese-Okumura and Eiji Callenreese-Okumura in white tuxes, tears shining in glassy eyes as they both hold sunflowers. Golden rings adorn both of their fingers.

(The names were a struggle; formally, they are both _Okumura_.)

And tucked into the corner of a silver frame, a string of photographs with worn edges. Shorter has his arms around Eiji and Ash, sunglasses showing those onyx eyes shining, and there are words written in Kaori’s familiar scrawl:

_He will always love you both. His soul is always with you._

* * *

.

.

.

**THE END…?**

.

.

.

_“In another world, perhaps we could meet. Not exactly the same, but our paths could cross. There’s an old saying in English: don’t upset the apple cart. It means don’t upset the status quo. Maybe that’s why I had to die, why Skip died, why Eiji got shot, why Jennifer died, why Ash died, why so many of us were fated to die or get hurt before our stories began.”_

_._

_._

_._

_“Maybe so, Shorter Wong. Yet, I wonder. I wonder if you were to upturn that apple cart, could the seeds lost from the ripe fruit be free to grow as another forest?”_

_._

_._

_._

** _BANANA FISH 2020: Upturn the Apple Cart._ **

** _By Ryefo. _ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Japanese translations:
> 
> [くそ.] - "Kuso". Basically, "shit/goddammit". Eiji swears, lol.  
[愛] - what Eiji traces into Ash's back. "Koi", aka "love".  
[もしもし] - "Moshi-Moshi". A phone greeting.  
[きれいだよ] - "Kirei Da Yo" - "you are beautiful".  
[“あなたは わたしにとって たいせつな ひとです,”] - "You are special to me"  
[あなたが ずっとすきでした] - "I will forever love you."  
[ずっと いっしょに いたいよ.] - "I want to be with you forever."


End file.
